Bringing Up Baby
by fangirl1982
Summary: Starts a year or so before Gabrielle joins the ED. My raunchy, angsty work at it's finest! Note: I know some of the canon timeline is a little out of whack but it's nothing too obvious. Enjoy, feedback loved!
1. Chapter 1

**Bringing Up Baby**

_Mid-1995 (aka season 8)_

"How come I got roped into this?" Doctor Jack Quade asked the attractive blond woman in the car next to him.

"'Cos it's my mate's eighteenth" she replied with all the pertness that her youth could muster. Jack wondered if he'd been as much of a ratbag when he'd been her age.

"Yeah, I get that, why did _I_ have to come?" he asked.

"'Cos mum told you to look after me, She told me she was going to ask you."

"How is driving you to some nothing town in the middle of nowhere to go to a party looking after you?" Jack asked.

"'Cos dad won't let me go on my own. He says there are too many bad influences out there for a girl my age."

Jack resisted the urge to crack up at the thought that someone was actually entrusting him with the care and wellbeing of their teenage daughter – and that's what his sister was, albeit a strong-willed, intelligent seventeen-year-old who was more than capable of looking after herself. "What's so funny?" Rebecca demanded to know when she saw Jack struggling not to laugh. They had only known each other a few weeks now, and he baffled her sometimes. He had the oddest sense of humour.

"Nothing," he managed to choke out. No sense in explaining in minute detail that fathers tended not to like him because of his cavalier attitude towards women, or that that attitude had largely come about because of his unhappy childhood at the hands of his womanising father and embittered, drunk step-mother. He was already well aware that Rebecca didn't like to think of their mother as the woman she had been in her twenties, too inconsiderate to give a damn about the marriages she helped destroy and too selfish to raise a child by herself. Of course, Carla wasn't to know exactly how unhappy her son's childhood would turn out to be by handing him over to his father, but it was still something Rebecca didn't care to think about in any great detail.

It had barely been a week since Carla's funeral, less than two weeks since her death. She had been close to the end when she had tracked her son down. Jack was struggling with his feelings towards his mother, and his own guilt over the way he had behaved in regards to his own once-pending fatherhood didn't help. He wondered if an unwillingness to face up to his responsibilities was a genetic thing – certainly, neither of his parents were prime material for Parent of the Year award. Or at least, his mother hadn't been at the time. Age seemed to have changed her, and from what Jack could gather, she had become a good wife and mother. But nonetheless a mother he had never known, let alone loved, and now he struggled with feelings of remorse for someone he had barely known.

And so here he was, at twenty-five saddled with a half-sister who had always wanted an older brother and now that she had one was not letting him go. In just a few weeks Rebecca had established herself as far more possessive than any other woman in his life, and loathe that he was to admit it, he found that he was quite fond of the girl. It helped that she and her father – Jack's step-father Paul – were an infinite improvement on his step-mother and two half-brothers to his father. Rebecca was keen to cut loose and party following the stress of her mother's death and funeral, and Paul wouldn't let her go alone. Jack escorting her was an acceptable solution, and Jack didn't have the heart to tell her no. Especially since his own social life didn't consist of much. Carla's death had been the least of personal troubles in his life this year. First there had been having to accept that he'd ruined any chance of reconciliation with Terri after getting Charlotte pregnant, and all for nothing when Charlotte had miscarried. Then Terri had left the country, talking Lucy, who he adored, with her. If he believed in God, he would be convinced God was repaying his unwillingness to be involved in Charlotte's pregnancy by first taking his own daughter from him and then the child he adored as if she were his own – or at least his step-daughter. He knew he was bitter because of it. Maybe running amok in a place where no-one knew him would be good for him.

The place where no-one knew him was a small town which serviced a farming community. Being a city boy through and through, Jack struggled to comprehend the sheer vastness of such a community – where area was measured in acres or hundreds of acres where he was used to thinking of them in meters. "It's so cute," he said, a trifle smuggly, when he and Rebecca explored the pub/hotel they were staying at. "It's like something out of _Blue Heelers_. Where's the old battleaxe sergeant?"

"I suggest you don't let them hear you say that," Rebecca said. "They're kind of sensitive to the country-hick stereotypes."

"Yeah, where did you learn all that?"

"I lived here for a term when I was fourteen. They had this city-country exchange thing going. That's how I know Sarah," she explained. Jack was surprised. His sister didn't strike him as the type to uproot and move to the country, even for just a term. But then, he had plenty of surprises for _her_. He grinned wryly at that and turned his face so she couldn't see.

"Whatever. I'm hungry. And filthy. Give me half an hour to have a shower and get changed and I'll meet you in whatever they call the lounge in this part of the country." Rebecca gave him a warning look about making such comments. "I want to see if everything they say about the food in country pubs is true."

* * *

"Hi, I don't think I've seen you around before."

"You haven't," Jack said to a young woman he figured was about his age. "I got made to come 'cos my sister needed an escort."

There was something in her eyes that made Jack think despite the fact she looked like she had raided the set of _McLeod's Daughters_ for her dress, she was very intelligent and very capable of putting information together. "You must be Rebecca's brother."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "You worked that out from one comment?" he asked, a little impressed.

She laughed at that, and he found herself drawn to her laugh. "Almost everyone here is local – well, local enough that I know them. And I know Rebecca vaguely, my brother's a year younger than her. Sarah's family hosted her a few years ago and Sarah's got half the girls between fifteen and thirty in this town in a twitter 'cos she promised to bring her – how did she say it – hunky surgeon brother with her."

Jack found himself laughing at that. "And here was me thinking she wanted me for my own self. Turns out I was just currency."

"Highly valued currency," the woman drawled. "We don't see a lot of fresh blood here. I think you managed to put my ex in a big sulk just on a rumour."

The way she said it made Jack think the idea of her ex in a sulk appealed to her and he idly wondered what the story there was. "Bad breakup?" he asked. It was phrased as a casual question but carried far more weight than that.

For some reason, she found herself drawn to this man, and she knew it wasn't just because he was a stranger in town for a few days who wasn't likely to blab anything and everything she told him to whoever would listen. There was an intangible quality to him that she recognised in herself, a combination of things – loyalty – after all, what kind of person came to such a town just to escort his sister if he wasn't hugely fond of her – intelligence, loneliness... and an understanding of people and life that came from such loneliness. She found herself telling him, a perfect stranger, about her ex cheating on her, with no less than her best friend, and that she had found out because he had passed on Chlamydia and when she had gone over to see her best friend to see if she had heard anything...

"Ouch," he said when she had finished talking.

"I just can't believe – I mean, of everyone, why _her_?" Seeing them around together – since Steve had realised there was no way she was taking him back, he had taken to hanging out with Ashley, and doing it as a public kick in the teeth.

"I've been guilty of that," he found himself admitting. She looked at him with sudden distrust. "Not like that, though." And he found himself returning her confidence and telling her of his disastrous one-night stand with Charlotte and the ongoing consequences.

"I'm sorry," she said when he was finished. For the first time since she had found out about their betrayal, she found herself feeling sorry for someone other than herself.

He shrugged. "That's part of why I let Bec drag me out here, I think. I need to get away from a lot of stuff."

She nodded. Needing to get away from stuff was something she understood only too well. She wished she had a city like Sydney to go to and get lost in. "I'm Gabrielle, by the way," she said, suddenly realising that for all their talk about the deep personal losses in their lives, she hadn't even told him who she was.

"Gabrielle," he said. He liked the sound of it. It was pretty. Feminine. The kind of name he would have given his daughter, had Charlotte carried her to term. "Can I buy you a drink?"

"It's an open bar," she explained.

"Fine... then can I _get_ you a drink?"

"Pint of TEDs, please," she said.

He couldn't help but smirk at that. "What, no Four-X?" he couldn't resist asking.

"You keep that and you'll have Four-X all over that expensive shirt of yours."

He returned a few minutes later with two pints and they settled down on one of the available benches. He was surprised to discover how intelligent and informed she was; he'd had this vague idea that country girls were Four-X swilling ignorants who's hobbies consisted on cheering their boyfriends on at rodeos and monster truck rallies and such things. He made Gabrielle laugh when he admitted to that. "Steve was exactly like that, except I never cheered him on. I never got the point of wrecking perfectly good machinery – or being cruel to animals like that."

"You're a vet?"

"Close enough, nurse."

"They have a hospital here?" he asked, trying to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice. He had taken a shine to her, and didn't want to test her patience too much with dumb comments about the general lack of civilization to be found so far from Sydney.

She didn't take offence. She thought it was kind of cute the way he was aware how his comments were coming off. "Yes, we have a hospital," she said. "Not as big as the one you work at, I'm sure, but we have a hospital. Nursing staff, however – I'm kind of 2IC of the whole staff by default."

He clucked his tongue. "That's impressive."

She laughed. "Hardly. It's a nightmare getting people to come here, and I just kind of fell into the position 'cos the head matron needed someone she could rely on." She laughed. "Ashley – that's my best friend, well, my ex-best friend, she and I went to school together and she was spitting chips when she found out matron trusted me and not her." Funny how she could laugh about Ashley when she was with Jack. He had this presence which put her at ease.

An hour or so passed. Jack was surprised at how much he was enjoying himself, far more than he had expected to at an eighteenth in a country town. Gabrielle interested him. He didn't know what it was about her – maybe her complete lack of pretensions, maybe it was just being in a different place that made him more at ease, but he was enjoying himself.

He saw her tense up when he made a comment about being surprised that people generally seemed more well-behaved than the drunken yobbo mob he had expected of a country pub. "Sorry," he said guiltily.

She realised he was apologising for his comment and she waved it away vaguely."No, it's not that. Uh, Steve and Ashley just came in."

"Where?" Jack twisted his body awkwardly to spot the newcomers entering the by-now crowded pub. "She doesn't look too crash hot," he sniffed. "Too obvious."

"Guys seem to like it," she said.

"Not all guys. Here," he said, grabbing her hand.

"Wait, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Dancing with you. I bet he's the jealous type."

"How do you know?"

"Guys like that are." He remembered how his dad couldn't stand to have another guy look at his wife, despite his many mistresses over the years. Well, this Steve guy certainly couldn't lay a claim on her now. A little bit tipsy, Jack took Gabrielle in his arms a little tighter than he needed to. He felt himself slightly flustered and for a moment remembered that the last woman he had held, other than Charlotte in comfort after her miscarriage, had been Terri during their brief reconciliation. Gabrielle was taller than her, at least five-ten in those heels. She was a nice fit in his arms. He liked the way she could rest her head on his shoulder. "You do a lot of physical work," he murmured, his tone clear that it was a compliment. He could feel the muscles in her back and arms as he idly ran his hand down one. He remembered how Terri had always felt so tiny in his arms, how he'd always been a little scared he would hurt her. Strange how that hadn't bothered him at the time but it was such a pleasant difference now.

"Us farmgirls have to haul around stuff slightly heavier than a scalpel," she teased, although it was obvious that Jack was used to hauling around far heavier things too. She could feel the muscles in his chest through his shirt and fought the urge to run her hand down his arm the way he had done to her but lack of boldness stopped her. She sighed a little unhappily. She bet Ashley wouldn't be lacking in such boldness. She bet if Ashley were in Jack's arms right now, she'd be all over him.

"Something wrong?" Jack asked.

"Just a bit down," she said.

"If it makes you feel better, Steve looks like he's ready to kill me," Jack offered.

She tilted her head so she could meet his eyes. "Really?" she asked. Jack nodded and swung her around so she could see for herself. Steve was glowing at them, and Ashley looked ready to vomit in jealousy. "She looks ready to scratch my eyes out," Gabrielle said, feeling a little lightheaded from both the alcohol and knowing that, at least for tonight, she had one over the girl who had caused her so many nights crying herself to sleep. "Steve has such a temper though, I'd watch out if I were you," she said, feeling a little guilty because Jack had volunteered himself for something without knowing what he was getting himself into.

"He looks just about ready to fall over. I'm sure I can handle him. Hey, I'm going to kiss you if you don't mind. I'm not trying to come onto you so don't think I'm up to anything funny."

"Jack, why are you doing this?" she asked.

"Because I've had a good time with you and I saw how my dad's screwing around affected my step-mother. Let me strike a blow on your behalf."

"OK," she said shyly. She had been kissed by men other than Steve in the past, but none who held her so firmly, so confidently like Jack was doing now. And she was sure he had kissed plenty of women in the past, so he had to know what he was doing, right? Even if it _was_ just for show. She tilted her head so she was looking into his eyes. "You have gorgeous eyes," she found herself saying softly, then blushed because it was such an intimate thing to say.

"Thankyou," he replied huskily, and lowered his mouth to kiss her.

He hadn't known what he had expected exactly, only that it wasn't for her lips to be this soft. She tasted like strawberry lipbalm, which was a sight nicer than the chalky taste of lipstick (he didn't care what Terri said, weather you paid five bucks or fifty for it, it still tasted like chalk). It occurred to him she wasn't the type to wear a lot of makeup – it had registered without really registering when he had compared Ashley's overdone, tarty look to Gabrielle's own – and he liked that. There was nothing quite as disappointing as discovering how much a woman had embellished on her appearance the morning after.

Something told him Gabrielle would look just as cute the morning after as she did right now. Her hair more ruffled, perhaps, but just as cute.

He ran his tongue over her lips, savouring the taste of her, even though he was only meant to be doing this for show and he was sure someone like Steve Taylor didn't know the difference between a show kiss and a real kiss. He inhaled, and the smell of soap, shampoo and deodorant hit him. So she wasn't big on perfume, either. What a pleasant change. He felt her lips part slightly in an automatic reaction, wanting him to take it further, and he flicked his tongue into her mouth, searching for her own. She responded eagerly, if somewhat awkwardly – but that only added to her charm. Something told him Gabrielle wasn't very experienced when it came for sex – not for lack of interest but for lack of a partner who knew what he was doing. He remembered Terri's hardness, her aloofness, the way he used to hold her in his arms after sex and will her to stop thinking about _him_, and something told him Gabrielle would be warm, inviting, the type who gave her entire body and soul to a man – or didn't bother.

She shuddered in his arms and he held her tighter, feeling her knees buckle. He didn't stop the kiss, didn't want to, knew she didn't want him to. "Jack," she whispered huskily when he pulled away ever-so-slightly. He liked the way she said that. Her recent ex was only a few meters away and yet she whispered his name like he was the only man for her.

In one word she smoothed away all his built-up resentments over Terri, all the times he had tried to penetrate her heart, tried to make her think about someone other than Mitch.

And she was five-ten in what weren't even particularly high heels.

He pulled away when she started to tremble harder, scared she might pass out on him. While making a woman swoon from desire would be something to brag about, it wasn't something he cared to explain to a room full of strangers, to whom she was a favourite daughter. "I don't want to pressure you after what you've been through," he whispered in her ear. "But I have a room upstairs if you want to go somewhere more private. We can just talk, if you want. I mean that."

Gabrielle suddenly felt very bold. She had been on a few dates before, some of which had ended in goodnight kisses, but nothing more than that. But something about being with Jack felt right. It wasn't just that they were both hurting. They had a camaraderie and chemistry that she had never shared with anyone, not even Steve. And what did she have to lose? It wasn't like she and Steve were together. "I'd like that," She said.

He pulled away from her so he could take her hand and led her through the crowded main room of the bar to the stairs that led to the hotel section of the pub. She followed him, feeling simultaneously bold and shy. She knew what Jack wanted from her, wanted it herself, but wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. She had only ever been with Steve but something told her that he wasn't the greatest of lovers. All those rumours she had heard – cynical comments that he preferred younger women who didn't know enough to expect much from a lover – all things she had dismissed in the past as vicious gossip but now she wondered if they were true. Certainly, he had never asked anything more of her than to just lie there, and inexperienced as she was, she knew there was more to it than that.

Jack let them into his room then spun her around and kissed her deeply. She responded readily, throwing her arms around his neck. God, but kissing him was so thrilling. "I'm not very good at this," she admitted when he pulled away from her to catch his breath. She liked knowing that he was struggling to keep his breathing under control.

"I'm not asking you to be, sweetheart. Just... be yourself. You don't know how sexy that is." She blushed at that. Certainly, no-one had called her plain, country self _sexy_ before. He took hand and led her over to the bed. "I meant what I said before," he said, his eyes and voice full of sincerity. "I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with. I know how crap bad sex can leave you feeling."

She was surprised at that. What did guys know about bad sex? She thought it was just in-and-out and the job was done. "I want this," she said. "I'm sure." Surer than she had been of anything else in her life... including dumping Steve.

"OK," he said. He kissed her again, and manoeuvred himself so he was on top of her and lowered her gently onto the bed. "Just do whatever comes naturally," he encouraged her when he could feel her fingers tugging tentatively at the end of his shirt. She brought her hands up inside his shirt, running them along his bare back. He grunted and bucked involuntarily against her. "Sorry," he said.

"No problem." She was grinning. Jack must have been with dozens of women, yet she had him reacting involuntarily to her touch. "Just do whatever comes naturally," she repeated his own advice.

They started making out in earnest, helping each other out of their clothes. She hadn't known undressing someone and being undressed could be such an erotic experience, and by the time they were in their underwear, she was shaking with desire. "Please, Jack," she begged.

He reached over and rummaged through the top dresser drawer. Since the disaster with Charlotte, he always had condoms in every conceivable place – as Rebecca had found out when she had gone rummaging through his glove compartment looking for chewing gum. And there was something even more disconcerting about getting a stranger pregnant during a one-night stand than there was about getting a colleague pregnant.

He got the condom on and positioned himself to enter her. "You ready?" he asked. She nodded emphatically. Of course she was ready. She had been more than ready ten minutes ago. She was straining at the bit to be with him. She felt she would explode if he didn't get on with it.

She entered her slowly, not entirely surprised at how tight she was despite her obvious wetness. He'd always had the opinion that men who felt to cheat on their wives and girlfriends were overcompensating for small penises. But she didn't seem to mind, and later it occurred to him that she was used to sex being awkward. Well, he would prove her otherwise. He began thrusting slowly, getting her used to the feel of him with as much patience as he could muster given how hot for her he was. Soon, he had her crying out in ecstasy, bringing out her passionate side., digging her nails into his back, running kisses over his face and chest, burying her head in his neck when he brought her to orgasm. He climaxed himself soon after.

"What did you just do to me?" she whispered in awe, looking at him like he was a god. Lord, but he had seen that look enough times on women's faces when he had made them come for the first time regardless of how many men had been before them. What was it with men being such selfish lays?

But then, his earliest memories included learning about what selfish lays men could be.

"It was nothing," he panted.

She touched his face gently. "Thankyou," she said. He squirmed. He always hated it when he got thanked for doing something he saw as his job. What, was he supposed to let her just lie there while he did his thing?

"Did you ever sleep with anyone other than Steve?" he asked.

"No, why?"

"Just curious." No bloody wonder then. "How old were you?" he asked. He had already noticed that he was a good ten years older than her. He put her at about twenty-three or –four, and the age discrepancy between someone in their mid-twenties and someone in their mid-thirties was bad enough, but if she had been much younger...

"Sixteen," she announced as casually as if she'd said vanilla was her favourite ice-cream flavour. He was forced to assume she had a really twisted sense of humour.

"Gabrielle, that's not funny."

"I wasn't being funny."

He stared at her and was forced to accept that she was telling the truth. "And let me guess, it was right on your birthday?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?"

Good Lord, was she really lying there and admitting her boyfriend – who would have been well in his twenties at the time – had seduced her on her sixteenth birthday? He knew far worse sexual predators existed, but still – "'Cos a few days earlier and it would have been a felony by the name of statutory rape," he said. "What did your dad say about it?"

"He didn't say anything. He knows how stubborn I can be. I would just have run away from home."

"You sound like my sister."

She poked her tongue out. "Great compliment to pay a girl." He had to laugh at that. There was something so forthright about her that he really liked.

"I want to see more of you," he blurted out. "I'll be here a few days and I'd like to spend them with you." God knew, it had to be better than sitting in his hotel room and twiddling his thumbs while Rebecca saw her various friends. Well, at least Rebecca couldn't have a go at him that he hadn't found something to do.

"I'd like that too," she said.

* * *

_Jack was kissing her face, her neck, her breasts, running his hands over her body, slowly, teasingly moving downwards until his fingers were stroking the most sensitive parts of her body, she responded willingly, writhing against his touch, murmuring softly, wantonly. She knew without being told that he was hard and as ready as she was. "Jack!" she cried out. She spread her legs to allow him easier access and willed him to enter her. "Jack!" she cried again..._

"Jack!" she admonished him when she bolted awake at his first hard thrust. "Jesus Christ, what are you doing?"

"What do you think I'm doing?" he asked with a grin. He had pushed up the shirt he had loaned her to sleep in so her breasts were exposed. Besides the material bunched up around her elbows, she was completely naked. Above her, Jack was pumping her hard, his fingers caressing her body, particularly between her legs. She arched her back and groaned.

"Damnit, you're incorrigible," she complained.

"You want me to stop?" he teased.

"Don't you dare."

Afterwards, he spooned her and she lay in his arms, already tired by the day's exertions. Funny, she was a farm girl, used to hauling around stuff well above the quarter-body-weight that was recommended. He ran soft kisses across her face in a way that made her think she could soon become addicted. He was so unapologetically masculine in his sexuality, but there was also something soft and gentle about him that you rarely saw, even in women.

"I hope I didn't do the wrong thing by you before," he said suddenly.

"When?"

"When I – you know. I was watching you sleep and you looked so sexy that I couldn't help myself. I should have waited until you were awake."

She had to laugh at that. All the times Steve had plied her with alcohol to get what he wanted, and Jack was apologising over _that_? "I wanted it and you knew I wanted it, I think that's all that matters," she said.

She knew what to say to make him feel better. He kissed her cheek. "Thankyou," he said. Now it was her turn to wonder why he was thanking her for some nothing little thing that any decent human being would overlook. She was starting to think that part of what had attracted her and Jack to one another was that they had both been deeply hurt by people who had acted less-than-human towards them, and they both had a vulnerability because of it.

Jack reluctantly roused her when she began to fall asleep again. "I told Bec I'd meet her for breakfast, and I have some explaining to do."

"Still thinks her big brother is a virgin, huh?" she teased.

Rebecca had him on a pedestal that would crumble soon enough. "Something like that," he admitted ruefully. He was reluctant to let that pedestal crumble _too_ soon. "Look, it's only fair since I'm not going to be able to drive her around that I give her my car – so I thought maybe you could go home and get some stuff and pick me up in say, an hour?"

She laughed at that. "Jack, my house is half an hour's drive from here. I need at least an hour and a half, preferably two. And... you really trust your sister with your car?" Steve wasn't the first guy she had met who wouldn't trust a woman, let alone a younger woman on her P-plates, with his car. Especially unsupervised.

"It's a rented car. It only concerned me 'cos it's in my name and I'm up for a bundle if she does something to it and they find out I handed the keys to an eighteen-year-old P-plater. So long as they don't know, they'll think it was me."

"Jack! That's fraud."

"To spend time with you, my dear, I'll happily commit fraud."

She grinned. Despite the unlikelihood of Jack ever committing fraud for her, she liked the idea that he would. "Give me two hours," she said.

"Is that two hours from now or when I decide to stop cuddling you?" he asked.

"Uh... that would be from when you stop cuddling me," she said. He really had no idea how far you had to travel to get between anywhere in this part of the country, which was odd, given how far he'd had to drive just to get here. Maybe he thought it was like driving between Sydney and Melbourne and once you got between the two places, you were in the middle of a metropolis. But it was nice that he wanted to keep cuddling her.

* * *

"I saw you leaving the party with a certain blond last night," Rebecca teased over breakfast.

"You told me to make friends."

"True. But I hear her boyfriend has a fierce temper."

"Her _ex_-boyfriend is about ten kilos overweight and has the reflexes of a drunk." Jack had always had a knack of reading people – especially when it came to their health – and besides, without realising it, even before he had kissed Gabrielle, he had been sizing up the competition and he knew he was healthier and stronger than Steve Taylor. "I'm sure I can handle him."

"You sure? This is a small town, Jack. I've heard about Steve and Gabrielle, too. I heard people saying he treated her like crap and deserved to have it flung it his face when she disappeared upstairs with a sophisticated stranger." The wonderful thing about not looking at all like your half-brother except for the chameleon eyes was that no-one realised who they were talking to when they gossiped about the stranger who had swept Gabrielle Jaeger off her feet right in front of Steve Taylor. "But he has a lot of mates – or, rather, cronies. You're not going to makes friends this way."

"I don't care about making friends. I care about Gabby."

She knew it was just a reflex of the tongue, but she was still surprised to hear him say it. She shrugged. It hadn't taken her long to learn that her brother had the same stubborn streak that she had, and it was best to choose her battles. She had won a major victory getting him to come here. Better that she leave him be to do his own thing. If he got his nose broken over it... well, she could always say 'I told you so' later.

Shortly after, Jack was killing time taking a walk down what passed for a main street while he waited for Gabrielle to get back when a ute barrelled down the street and deliberately ploughed into a glut of mud on the street next to him, spraying Jack's two-hundred-dollar shirt and hundred-dollar jeans in mud. An empty can of VB flew out of the receding car and clattered at Jack's feet. Despite his wrecked clothes, he had to grin at that. A _full_ can would have done more damage, had it hit him, but that would have meant sacrificing a tinny. "That's unpatriotic for a New South Welshmen!" he yelled after the car, if only to feel superior in himself that the term for someone from Wales was 'Welsh'; people tended to get that in context of the original Wales, but not New South Wales. He picked the can up and tossed it in the bin. The remaining drops of Victoria Bitter smelled bad, especially since the tinny had been opened a while ago and the drops left to go rancid. "VB," he muttered under his breath. "Yuk."

Gabrielle was waiting in him when he got back to the pub. "One of your ex's cronies decided to ruin a perfectly good three-hundred dollars," he explained. He mistook her quizzical look for wondering which one of them it was, as opposed to who would spend three hundred dollars on what could be bought for less than a hundred. "I'll let you in, just let me take a shower and I'm all yours."

Once Jack had gone to take a shower in the ensuite, Gabrielle flicked through the collection of books he had left. _Gone With the Wind. Vanity Fair_ A collection of Jane Austen. She wondered how much of his taste in literature featuring strong women came from his sister and how much came from something else.

There was a knock of the door. She figured it was Cherie Adams, the publican. Cherie had spoken to her this morning, when she had left, concerned that she didn't know what she was getting herself into. She had assured Cherie that she just wanted a bit of fun and Cherie had nodded understandingly. Manning the pub of a small country town for over twenty years, she had plenty of education when it came to the entitled mindsets of men in the area when it came to sex.

She opened the door to be met by Steve. Immediately, the stench of Scotch assailed her. She remembered how Jack's kisses had tasted like beer, but somehow she hadn't minded. But with Steve here, Drunk, even though it was only eleven in the morning – was he still drunk from last night or had he not stopped drinking? "Go away," she said.

Cherie had never thought to put chain-locks on the door, and Gabrielle's weight and strength was no match for Steve's, even drunk. "You _slut_," he hissed at her.

Even in her precarious situation, that was too much for her. "_Me_? _You're_ the one who slept with my best friend! Let me ask you something, Steve – did she give you Chlamydia or were you screwing someone else as well?" She still felt dirty just thinking about it. There was something about getting an STD that compounded the humiliation of discovering your partner had been unfaithful several times over.

"That wasn't my fault. I was drunk."

"Like you're drunk at eleven in the morning? Get out, Steve. You're not welcome."

Enraged to be reminded that this was the room of his girlfriend's lover, he charged into the room. He hadn't liked Jack Quade from the time the rumours started that some friend of Sarah's was bringing her older brother, a good-looking surgeon. Steve bet Mr. Pretty-Boy-Surgeon had never extracted someone from a malfunctioned tractor, or had to work with anything but the best equipment while waiting for Flying Doctors to arrive. And yet every girl in town was in a dizzy over it, and jealous that Plain Jane Gabrielle Jaeger had nabbed him. Even _Ashley_, who had quickly staked her claim as Steve's new girlfriend, had been obviously put out. Steve wasn't sure what burned him more, than Gabrielle had moved on so quickly or that Ashley had been obviously put out, considering that Gabrielle had landed a better catch than her.

He had been furious when he'd seen Gabrielle go upstairs with him. He had spent the night drinking with his mates, and had now been encouraged to go and confront the guy. To his increased fury, she was still there, installed in his room like some – like some _mistress_. Steve's lip curled up in disgust. _Mistress_ sounded good. "Whore!" he yelled at her.

Gabrielle stared at Steve, for the first time seeing the drunk, selfish loser that he was. She thought about Jack's selflessness as a lover, the way he'd felt bad when he'd taken her when she wasn't fully awake, and realised there was much better in life than an aging jerk who thought nothing of plying a sixteen-year-old with alcohol and deflowering her in the back of a ute. "I'd rather be his whore then your girlfriend," she shot back, and suddenly she realised she had a weapon in her hand which would hurt him as much as he had hurt her. "He's a far better lover... and his dick is much bigger."

Steve glared at her hatefully. This wasn't the sweet, tactfully-spoken Gabrielle that he knew, and he was too out of it and too generally self-absorbed to realise her bitterness stemmed from how deeply he had hurt her, firstly by cheating on her, then by flaunting his relationship with Ashley in front of her. All he could feel was the rage at being insulted so – and because of some stuck-up city snob had swooped in on his turf.

He struck her with as much force as he could manage in his state, and she stumbled back. He lunged after her, pinning her to the bed. He shoved his hand over her mouth and used his free hand to pull at her shirt, tearing it down the middle. She released a muffled scream through his hand and was assaulted by the smell of alcohol coming off his body in waves. It made her want to throw up. "Steve!" she screamed at him. His legs were on either side of her now, his weight pinning her to the bed. Terror hit her like a ton of bricks when Steve wedged the hand that had just torn her shirt between her legs in the same crass way he used to do. This couldn't be happening. He had always been a bit rough, a bit demanding, but never like this.

The running water from the shower had muffled the sounds of the struggle outside the bathroom, so it wasn't until Jack turned off the tap that his ears were alerted to something going on. Without bothering the dry himself properly, he threw on his dressing gown and bolted out of the bathroom to be greeted by the image of Gabrielle pinned to the bed by her ex-boyfriend, who had torn her shirt off and was working on her jeans. Revulsion flooded him and for a second, he was taken back to a time more than ten years ago. Red-hot fury engulfed him and he threw himself at Steve, yanking the older man off Gabrielle and smashing his fist into his nose. There was a distinct _cracking_ sounds that all of them, as medical professionals, knew to be that of a bone breaking. With a scream, Steve tottered backwards and miraculously managed to stay standing. Jack followed up his first punch with one to his left eye. _That_ made Steve fall to the floor.

Jack stepped towards him and was ready to join Steve on the floor for an all-out brawl, confident that he was far stronger and far more sober and could pummel Steve if he wanted to. "Jack!" Gabrielle screamed at him. "Jack, don't."

It was enough to bring him out of the mist of red-hot rage that engulfed him and back to her. Steve scrambled to his feet. His nose was bleeding and on an angle that noses weren't meant to be on, and his eye was already swelling. "You son-of-a-_bitch_!" Steve screamed at him. "I'll get you for this. I'll –" There was a look in Jack's eyes that, even drunk and in a lot of pain _despite_ being drunk, Steve recognised. It was the look of a man who was willing to kill and think nothing more of it than stepping on a cockroach. He started backing towards the door. "This isn't the last of it," he threatened hollowly. They all knew that it was.

Jack locked the door after Steve had staggered out (hoping that the older man might do everyone a favour and fall down the stairs and break his neck. Rage still burned in him. Anyone who did that to someone smaller than them was nothing more than a cockroach, a parasite that spread disease everywhere it went. The only thing that stopped him from charging after Steve and finishing the job was _feeling_, rather than _hearing_, Gabrielle's choking sobs. He rushed over to the bed and brought her into his arms, cradling her more like a child than a lover. "It's OK," he said soothingly. "It's over. I'm here. Cry if you want to." He struggled to keep his emotions in check as memories that he tried so hard to keep out of his mind pushed themselves to the forefront.

"Oh, God, if you hadn't been here –"

Jack was well aware that if he hadn't been here, Steve probably would have forced himself on Gabrielle in some kind of drunk, jealous rage. "Well, I was." He wondered how far Steve might have gotten had he stayed longer in the shower. The thought made him sick, and if that was how _he_ felt, he could only imagine how Gabrielle was feeling right now. But then, that was part of why he was so upset. He _could_ imagine what she was feeling right now.

"Oh, God, I think I'm going to –" Calmly, Jack handed her the waste-paper basket next to his bed and didn't stop holding her while she threw up. "Sorry," she said weakly when she was finished.

"It's OK. Why don't you have a shower."

"I'll clean the bin first."

"You'll do no such thing. Go have a shower. Take as long as you like." His tone was simultaneously gentle and commanding, and Gabrielle obediently headed for the adjoining bathroom.

A few minutes after she got in the shower, there was a knock on the door. "Who is it?" Jack asked, his guard immediately up. While he didn't think Steve was dumb enough to come back, let alone had the strength to break down the door, plenty of experience in the ED had taught him that dunks weren't the brightest crayons in the box.

"It's Cherie," the publican called back. Jack let her in. "I just passed Steve Taylor. He threatened to sue both of us," she said wryly. Cherie had enough experience with Steve Taylor and men like him to know that it was always everyone else's fault in their own minds and almost always their fault in reality. "What happened?"

Jack let her in and explained. The colour drained from her face. "I knew he took it badly – he's one of those guys who thinks it's OK to play around openly but won't tolerate the slightest kind of behaviour from their girlfriends and wives –" Jack nodded sagely at that, he had seen plenty of that attitude growing up. "But I didn't think he'd go that far. I thought he was too cowardly."

"I'll kill him if I see him again," Jack said in a quiet, dangerous voice.

Cherie didn't doubt it. Nor did she doubt that Steve, drunk though he was half the time, knew it. "I know it's cold comfort to you and especially her, but he's gone too far now. His behaviour was tolerated because it's hard to find a decent doctor to work in these parts – and he _is_ a good doctor, I won't deny that, just a lousy human being – but he's going to find that it doesn't matter how many people he treats, he won't be invited anywhere but with his cronies."

"I ran into one of them," Jack said dryly.

"I hope this hasn't given you the wrong impression of country life, Jack," she said. "There _is_ a different attitude about women, well, that some people hold anyway, but for the most part people are loyal and kind and it's a close-knit community that you don't find in cities." He had to smile wryly at that. He was well aware that there were men out there who held the most antiquated and hypocritical ideas about women and sex, and not just in country towns, but there certainly wasn't that close-knit community in Sydney that Cherie was talking about. He was starting to think he'd been full of himself to assume that Sydney was far superior to anything a town like this has to offer. "Is there anything I can do?" Cherie asked.

"Um... if you could get rid of this?" Jack asked hopefully, gesturing to the bin. "I don't want to go into the bathroom and invade her personal space when she's like this. And maybe not have lunch for about half an hour. I don't think she has much in her stomach right now."

She nodded. He had an awareness of what she needed right now that was pleasantly surprising. "Of course." She'd give it an hour, though. She doubted Gabrielle would be out of the shower in half an hour, let alone ready to eat. She retrieved the bin from Jack and left.

About fifteen minutes later (Jack was surprised the hot water lasted that long) Gabrielle emerged. He related what Cherie had said as he eased her into his arms. "She's a good woman," Gabrielle commented. "Strong, smart." Jack thought she would have to be, to run the most popular pub in a country town. "She's faced down more than her fair share of men twice her size," Gabrielle agreed. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and buried her face in his chest. Despite his obvious strength, she felt safe with him. She found herself shaking again and was grateful to have his arms around her. "I can't stop shaking," she admitted, feeling ashamed of her weakness.

"It's natural." He felt her tears seep through his shirt on his skin and was full of rage towards the world that people thought it was OK to do things like this. "I've got you." He wished he could do more than just hold her, although it seemed to be doing her good.

Eventually she stopped crying and shaking and they went down to lunch. He outdid himself making her smile and laugh and feel like a human being so she was actually up to taking him on a nickel-and-dime tour of the small town when they had finished eating. He drew them into their own little world so that for a little while, it was easy to believe that they were just another couple enjoying the day out. It wasn't just that he had gone out of his way to make her feel safe and loved; the truth was, even though they had known each other less than a day, they had a definite connection. If he had met her in Sydney and their first day had turned out like this, he would be parking himself outside her door.

But this wasn't Sydney. This was half a day's drive from Sydney.

"Why don't you come back with me?" he found himself suggesting in bed together at the end of the day. He couldn't bring himself to come onto her, but there was something about cuddling up to her that was, in its own way, better than sex. He had never felt like he wanted to protect someone before. And it wasn't just because of what had happened with Steve, either. It was because he wanted her to be his girl and he couldn't remember the last time he had wanted that. Or at least the last time he had wanted that and he sensed that his feelings were returned.

"What?" she asked groggily. Jack asking her to go back to Sydney with him seemed so improbable that she figured he must have said something else, or meant it in a different way.

"Come back to Sydney with me. They always need nurses, especially nurses of your experience. It's an amazing city, you'd love it."

"Jack, I don't want to go to Sydney."

"Why not?" he asked, a little petulant despite himself. He had been thinking about it as he drifted off to sleep, and the idea had struck him so suddenly and obviously that it had jolted him out of it. She deserved more than a town like this, and could go so much further in Sydney. And most importantly, they could still see each other.

"Because I _like_ it here. My _family_ is here. My _life_ is here."

"Including a boyfriend who slept with your best friend, gave you a STD and, oh yeah, tried to _rape_ you."

It was way out of line and touched a raw nerve. "Because Sydney is completely absent of sexual predators," she said sarcastically.

"Sorry," he mumbled. She had hit a nerve of his own without realising it.

She turned to face him. "Jack, I'm not rejecting you. I like you, OK? But I agreed to this because I knew it wouldn't last. I like you but I'm not ready for another relationship."

The simple truth of it sunk to the core of Jack's soul. He knew all too well what it was like to be involved with someone who wasn't ready for another relationship. "Fine," he said sullenly. It wasn't fair that he found someone he totally clicked with and he had to walk away from it.

She stroked his face. "Please don't be like that," she pleaded. "We don't have much time. Do you really want to waste it being angry over something that wouldn't work anyway?"

He nodded. A basic sense of honesty within himself knew that he couldn't like her because of her insight and honesty and at the same time resent her for it. Especially when, as she had said, they didn't have much time.

* * *

Time was passed far too quickly for both Jack and Gabrielle's liking. On the day they were supposed to leave – actually the day after, since as the person who's name the rental car was in, Jack had insisted they stay another day – he took his time saying goodbye to her. "You have my home phone and mobile and email," he said. "I want you to call if anything happens, if you need a mate, if you're ever in Sydney, OK?" She nodded.

"Thanks for everything," she said. "You're the greatest guy I've met, other than my dad and brother." She was sorry that she hadn't been able to introduce Jack to them, but neither was the kind of guy who would accept Jack as someone who had come into Gabrielle's life as nothing more than a fling – especially so soon after her break-up. Her father despised Steve for what he had done, but that didn't mean he approved of his baby girl – and Gabrielle would always be a baby in his eyes – shaking up with some stranger blown in from Sydney for a few days.

He didn't want to let her go. "Promise you'll call," he said huskily. He didn't entirely trust Steve Taylor to stay away and he wanted her to feel like she had an ally, no matter what, no matter where he might be.

"I promise."

They kissed goodbye, then kissed some more. In passenger's seat, Rebecca leaned over and honked the horn, bursting them out of their reverie. "Jack!" she yelled, at eighteen, not the most sensitive of people to another person's need to say goodbye. "Sometime this century would be nice!"

Jack reluctantly pulled away. "I'll see you," he said softly, the three words promising so much despite how much they could realistically deliver.

"You too," she said.

He got in the car and started the engine. He was glad to be getting back to Sydney, knew he didn't belong here, but having to leave Gabrielle wrenched his heart more than he would have thought possible. As well as he could without endangering himself, Rebecca or anyone within the car's projectory, he kept an eye on her, first face-to-face and then in the rear-view mirror until he couldn't see her anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

_Mid 2006 (season 9)_

"Jack, I need you to take some paperwork down to the ED."

Jack made a face. "Do I have to?" he asked his friend and boss Vincent Hughes.

"Jack, you can't avoid the new NUM forever," Vincent told him. He knew better than most how badly Jack had taken the disastrous end to his relationship with Deanna Richardson. It had been such a shame, really. Jack had been in a slump ever since Charlotte had miscarried and Terri had left, with the exception of a few weeks about this time last year when something seemed to have perked him up. If Jack had been gun-shy about starting a new relationship then, then Deanna's manipulations had made him a virtual monk.

Although Vincent doubted Jack was living the life on a monk. More likely he was picking up women in bars, using them before they could use him.

He felt sorry for the younger man. Whatever issues he had with Jack's relationship with Charlotte – and no matter how hard he tried, he could never truly get over the fact that Charlotte had once said that if it was to be any man, it would be him, and yet she had jumped into bed with first Jack and then Spence – he knew Jack had a great capacity for love and an equally great capacity for having his heart broken. He had been deeply in love with Deanna, and to find out that whatever real feelings she had felt, his main value to her had been as a backer to manipulate her ranks first through the ED and then through the hospital. It had made him question what he was worth, made him hard and bitter. Made him do everything he could do avoid the new ED NUM after he had heart she was a woman - and a reasonably attractive blond at that.

"Jack, you can't avoid her forever," Vincent said again.

Jack scowled. He remembered like it was last night the way Deanna had sobbed in his arms, shaking because Frank had allegedly told her if she didn't sleep with him, she would be fired. She had pushed all his buttons, manipulated his desire to be loved. For the first time since leaving the small country town that Rebecca had dragged him to, he had believed there was hope for a real steady relationship for him.

And then it had turned out she had made the whole thing up and now he couldn't stop wondering how much she had faked for his benefit. Part of what had made him fall for her was the way she had trembled in his arms. It had made him think of Gabrielle following Steve's attack, needing someone she trusted to love and protect her. Like hell Deanna had needed his love and protection.

"Jack, go. Now."

"Find someone else."

"You _are_ someone else," Vincent said, reluctant to remind him that he was the most junior surgical resident and as such, he was the designated gofer.

Scowling, Jack snatched the paperwork from Vincent's hand and stormed down to the ED. "What was that about?" Bianca Frost asked sweetly, coming up behind him.

Vincent gritted his teeth. There was something about Bianca that set his nerves on edge. She was a brilliant surgeon, but there was something cold about her. She reminded him of Richard Craig; a brilliant, selfish user. In a man, those traits were bad enough. In a woman, it was a massive turn-off. "He's hurting," Vincent said simply.

"Still?" Bianca never held onto old loves. Although 'old loves' was putting it kindly for her. Vincent doubted she was capable of love.

"His heart's broken. It's a sign of being human. You should try it sometime."

Jack grudgingly made his way to the ER, paperwork in hand, keeping his head to the ground. He was bound to run into someone that way. Papers went everywhere. "Shit!" he yelled at no-one in particular. "Sorry," he said to the individual he ran into. He kneeled down to help them pick up the dropped papers, and met them square in the eye. He recognised the keys of the ward's NUM immediately; Deanna had worn them often enough. "You!" he said. "I thought you'd never leave – what was the name of that town?"

Gabrielle tried not to feel a little insulted that Jack had forgotten the name of the small town she came from (actually, she came from the outerlying farming area). But then, given how bloody big Sydney was, she couldn't really blame him. "Widgee," she offered.

"Why'd you leave? Why didn't you call?" Jack was still on the ground, to flabbergasted to speak. This was _her_, his short fling that had meant so much to him, practically lying on the floor with him in All Saints Western General in the heart of Sydney, a city she had told him she could never be happy in.

"I tried calling," Gabrielle protested. "And emailing. Everything was cut off."

He grinned ruefully at that. "My ex-girlfriend was a bit, um... reluctant to let go. When I had to move out for other reasons – well, that meant changing my landline and email account 'cos it was linked to my internet account, so I figured I change my mobile as well. I've been handing out my new contact details as I realised people needed them. Here." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a new business card with new contact details on them.

Gabrielle took it, feeling strangely jealous when he spoke about his ex-girlfriend. She was in a much better position than him, of course. She hadn't realised she had taken a job at the same hospital as him – so many hospitals, churches and schools in this country had the name All Saints – but plenty of people had corrected her on that ignorance. Jack Quade, it seemed, had quite a reputation. Most of it he had already admitted to. His relationship with a former nun that was never going to love him as much as he loved her. Getting her lesbian best friend pregnant as the result of a one-night stand and her following miscarriage. But it wasn't just that.

She wasn't to know that Deanna Richardson had held court as Cougars for two weeks telling anyone who would listen that Jack was a lousy lay and a compulsive cheat until Vincent had found out about it and threatened to break her neck. She had struggled to reconcile with the man she had known so briefly with the topic of such gossip.

Of all people, she had found a defender in the lesbian of the story. Charlotte Beaumont. "Jack's a sweetheart," she had said. "Very guarded – he's given his heart one too many times to women who were either too in love with someone else or too big a bitch to appreciate what they had – but he's the most loyal friend you'll ever come across. He's like all of us, really, he just wants to be loved. He just goes about it badly. But he's a great doctor and you won't have to worry about him hitting on you or any of your staff."

Her gut told her that Charlotte's story was the right one, and the rest was gossip. People were far more inclined to pass on bad news than good; it took a true friend, someone who really knew a person, to tell _good_ things about them. Which didn't change her own situation one whit.

"But it's good to see you," he said, suddenly brightening. If she had known it was the first time he had really smiled since finding out that Deanna was a pathological liar and seductress, she might have rethought her actions. "Look, I think we need to talk. There's a pub near where I live, too far away from the hospital that no-one but Dan and I go to, I thought we could meet after work and have a drink?"

"I'm not sure..." she began hesitantly.

"Look, what's the alternative? We avoid each other? I hate to break it to you, but this hospital is way smaller than your farm. I think it's better that we hash things out." She knew he was right and agreed to meet him for a drink after work.

He was waiting for her when he got there. "I hope you don't mind, I got you a drink," he said. She smiled when she tasted it. TEDs. It was sweet that he remembered.

He leaned in to kiss her and she pulled away. "I don't think that's a good idea," she said.

He frowned. "Why not?" They had spent several days together, had amazing chemistry and camaraderie, by sheer coincidence she ended up taking a position in the same hospital as him after telling him she could never leave – what was that town called? – and now she was saying that it wasn't a good idea? What was 'it' anyway? It was just a kiss. It wasn't like he was asking her to marry him.

She sighed. She had known this would be difficult, If she had known Jack worked here, she might have rethought taking the job. But it was a plum position in a major Sydney hospital, a far cry from the country hospital she had come from. She had been lucky to get it at her age. "Jack... you know how you said you thought I would never leave Widgee?" He nodded. "Well, it was mostly to do with Steve. He never forgave me for what happened between you and I. I think in his mind he twisted it around until _I_ had cheated on _him_. He told everyone who would listen – well, I'm not going to repeat it."

Jack nodded, feeling deep sympathy. Deanna had done the same to him. When it had dawned on her that hell would freeze over before he took her back, she had retaliated by telling anyone who would listen the most fantastic stories about him. Most people had known she was full of shit, but enough had believed her that it had wrecked what remained of Jack's personal credibility. "I'm sorry," he said.

"I don't blame you. You kind of did you a favour. It made me realise how vicious and vengeful he can be. I was actually thinking of taking him back at one point. But... it ruined me. I couldn't keep my head up after he was finished. I came here to start afresh, where no-one knew me and could make judgements about me. I never thought I'd run into you."

He reached for her hand. "But you did."

She pulled it away before he could grab it. "Jack, you have a terrible reputation. People have been coming up to me _all day_ to tell me about it. To hear some people talk, you've slept with every nurse in this hospital between twenty and forty, and most of the doctors."

"That's not true!" Jack said indignantly. "My ex made up all this crap about me when I wouldn't get back with her, and there's this surgeon who hates my guts, I don't know why, but she seemed to think the fact she was seeing my housemate gave her carte blanche to spout crap about me."

"Jack, I know that." He looked surprised at her reassurance. "You have a good ally in Charlotte, you know. I get that you're not the jerk people say you are, I just... can't risk getting involved with someone like you."

"That's not fair," he said quietly.

She looked at him for a second, thinking. No, it wasn't fair. Steve had put her through hell, far more than Jack knew – and would ever know. She was only grateful that Rebecca and Sarah had had a falling out, so Sarah hadn't deigned to pass on such a juicy bit of gossip, because Rebecca would have passed it straight on to Jack. "A lot of stuff isn't fair, Jack," she said, and he was surprised at how sad she sounded. Was she sorry that she had to turn him down, or was it something else?

She was determined to throw the sadness she felt at the unfairness of the situation – entirely brought about by one deeply selfish, spiteful man – and she focused on him. "Besides, from what I understand, you really cared about this woman Deanna," she said.

Jack made a face. "I don't want to talk about her," he said. "I don't want to think about her ever again."

"That's kind of my point. It seems like you're still hurting over it." _Like I am. Like I think I always will. Was cheating on me and trying to rape me not enough for you?_ "Do you really think you're in a position to start dating again?" It was good enough to pass for the truth. Everything she had said was valid – it just wasn't the biggest reason. That she had to keep to herself.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Then don't you think it's best if we don't complicated things?"

She was giving him a graceful exit, and he took it. Better than that pursue her doggedly like he had Terri Sullivan. Heh, maybe he _did_ need to cool it with dating for a while. Everything he had done relationship-wise in the last two years had turned to shit. "Can we be mates?" he asked hopefully. "I'm not trying to pressure you, but we got along really well – it seems stupid to throw that away."

Of course. But she didn't intend on letting him get too close. She couldn't let anyone get too close.

* * *

"C'mon, Jack, you've got to admit, she has a point. You're hardly in a position to start dating again."

"I believe you said you'd rather see me dating Schapelle Corby at the time," Jack reminded Rebecca. She and Deanna had hated each other on sight, for fundamentally the same reason; neither had wanted to share him.

Rebecca grinned at the memory. There had been something unlikeable about Deanna Richardson from the moment she had first met the older woman, even before she and Jack had gotten together. She heartily disliked competition, and would go to any lengths to get rid of it. But she had overestimated the unwillingness of her competition to be gotten rid of – in both her and Nelson Curtis. "I only said that to get a rise out of her," Rebecca admitted. And it had worked. That, and needling her endlessly about the fact she was older than Jack and her biological clock was ticking. "Look, I know I didn't like her and I never pretended to... but I know you cared about her as much as a person _can_ care about someone in such a short period of time. That it was founded on a lie doesn't make it hurt any less."

Jack turned his head slightly so he wasn't meeting her eyes anymore. Despite only being eighteen and the fact they had only known each other a year, Rebecca had a deep insight into his mind – often unnervingly so. "This was different," he insisted. "Or at least, it was. When I was with her – I've never felt like that about someone." Not even Deanna, even at her most vulnerable and scintillating.

Rebecca reached over and squeezed his hands. "I know, I was there, remember? You made me stay an extra week in that place so you could spend more time with her."

"It was a _day_," he reminded her.

"It felt like a bloody week," she grumbled...

... "I wonder what they always have to talk about?" Bart wondered from across Cougars. He and his sister barely got along.

"That's 'cos you've known her all your life," Charlotte said. "They're in, like, the honeymoon period of siblinghood." She turned to Gabrielle to explain. It was her first time out with the ED staff at Cougars. "Jack and his sister Rebecca are ridiculously close. The way they carry on, you'd think they were identical twins and not half-siblings born seven years apart. When her uni coincides with the end of his shift, they often grab a drink and join the rest of us when they feel like it. That, and I think she's still enjoying the whole I-can-drink-legally thing. " Gabrielle gave a small nod of understanding, as if she didn't already known that. A year ago, he had been devoted enough to her that he'd driven her hundreds of kilometres so she could go to a party. _That_ was sibling devotion.

But of course she couldn't tell anyone.

True enough to Charlotte's word, after a few more minutes Jack and Rebecca came over. She was a few years younger than even Bart, but she was always popping into the hospital to say hi to Jack or get something off him that the staff had started to see her as some quasi-member. Rebecca glanced at Gabrielle as if she had never laid eyes on her before. "You must be the chick that replaced the wicked witch," she said.

"By that she means the new NUM," Vincent offered helpfully. 'Wicked witch' was one of the kinder names Rebecca had given to Deanna.

Gabrielle was grateful that Rebecca was doing such a sterling job of pretending to never have met her. "That would be me," she said. "I take it you didn't like – sorry, _which_ of my predecessors are you referring to? I understand there's been about six in the last year."

There were a few giggles from that. Frank was a notoriously difficult man to work with, and to date, Terri Sullivan held the unbroken record of nine months "Deanna," Vincent supplied.

"Horrible woman," Rebecca declared. "I'm sure you'll do a _much_ better job." There was a double meaning to her words that made Gabrielle feel like she was on very shaky ground.

"Did you talk to her about me?" Gabrielle asked Jack the next day.

"Of course I did."

"Jack! You can't just –"

"Just what? Go around telling someone who was _there_ that, hey, turns out you'll come and live in Sydney after all. Would you have rather I didn't say anything? She's in here all the time. Would you have preferred to have it be a surprise and have her say something along the lines of 'hey, you're that chick who slept with my brother'?"

"No," Gabrielle admitted. There was a lengthy pause. She had managed to fall in step with him and since they were both headed for the ED, it seemed stupid for her to break away. "She didn't like Deanna much, did she?"

"No-one liked her."

"But she had a personal reason for not liking her."

Jack shrugged. "Bec's more possessive than any girlfriend I've had. It's nice I've ever had a family member care about me like that – but it can get a little annoying. Beyond that, though, she's one of the most insightful people I know. Deanna put this act on when she was around me but Rebecca saw right through it and told me so at every opportunity."

"What was she like?" Gabrielle asked. She had heard so much about her notorious predecessor that she was curious as to the woman she was. Well, that's what she told herself. It wasn't because she wanted to know about the woman who had broken Jack's heart or anything like that.

"Rebecca? She's – "

"No, I meant Deanna."

Jack made a face. "A manipulative tramp."

Gabrielle had to laugh at the instant reaction. He looked like a child who had been told to eat his broccoli. "I meant, what was she like that you fell for her?"

"Oh. Um... compassionate. Vulnerable." He remembered the day he had found her crying in the tea room. It had been over a husband-and-wife journalist team creating illnesses in her to write a series of stories about the wastage going on in public hospitals – only for it to turn out that because they had been screwing around, they had missed her _actual_ illness, now too late to treat. She had been devastated – or had she? He wondered now if she really had been upset or she had just grabbed the opportunity to make him see her compassionate side – and fall for it.

He remembered how she had been that night, an enchanting combination of passive and bold. Kind of like – "She reminded me a little of you," Jack blurted out before he had thought about it. Gabrielle looked at him in surprise. "I mean... that kindness. She had this strength that she showed on the job but a vulnerability she only showed to me. Or at least, I thought that what it was," he added bitterly. He doubted Deanna had a vulnerable bone in her body, just superb acting skills.

He had obviously taken the breakup hard, and she wondered how much of it was the bitterness of realising he had been deceived and how much was real loss. He had struck her as someone who loved deeply and felt loss just as deeply. God, but he'd make a wonderful boyfriend once he found a girl who truly appreciated him.

There was a sudden burst of voices, and a group of rowdy teenage boys ran down the veranda hall past them, threatening to bowl Gabrielle over. Jack grabbed her quickly and pressed them both against the wall, her chest pressed firmly against his, his arms tightly around her waist. "You OK?" he asked when they were gone.

She nodded. "Fine." She had forgotten how strong he was, but it was a strength which wasn't the least bit threatening. She remembered, almost against her will, sobbing in his arms and feeling like it was the safest place in the world even though he was stronger than Steve and could break her neck if he wanted. It took a few seconds before she realised she was still in his arms, and she scrambled out of them. "Thanks," she mumbled.

"It was no problem."

She hurried off. For the rest of the day something was bugging her, until she realised that he still wore the same aftershave, and it still suited him.

* * *

"I had a _really_ nice night."

_I bet you did_. Jack was so bored that he couldn't even be bothered going through the motions of taking the eager girl to bed. Besides, he suspected she still lived with her parents. Not for the first time that night he wondered how he had gotten roped into it.

Oh yeah, because despite having said just a few weeks ago that he needed time to get over the hurt Deanna had inflicted, Rebecca kept pushing him to start dating again, and telling him she had this wonderful friend and that wonderful friend until he got to a point where he figured a blind date _had_ to be better than having his sister nagging him all the time.

He was beginning to miss the nagging. At least Rebecca was _interesting_. He wondered what she saw in this Taylor. She was vapid, or maybe it was that the thought of having a surgeon for a boyfriend turned her into a fidgeting fangirl. Either way, he was bored out of his mind. They had nothing in common and he had gone in thinking eighteen was too young for him, anyway. Tonight settled it; from now on, he was setting the bar at twenty-one.

He knew she was eager to continue things. He wasn't. It wasn't just that he suspected she still lived with her parents - he doubted she could afford a place like this, even sharing with a few people – it was... _everything_. It was no longer being interested in a transient lay with someone he had no connection with. It was getting to an age where he needed intellectual stimulation as well as sexual.

It was seeing Gabrielle every goddamn day and not being able to refrain from remembering their fling. She was so poised, so professional, never letting on to anyone that there had once been something between them. He understood instantly why she had been promoted to unofficial 2IC of the whole nursing staff at her country hospital; the lack of nurses in that area had little to do with it. Despite her age and relative inexperience, she was a compassionate, professional nurse. Not only that, but she could handle Frank like no-one before her had managed. Even his loyalty to Terri didn't stretch to thinking she had handled him the way Gabrielle could. And Von thought the world or her – in as much as Von ever admitted to thinking the world of anyone – after she had gotten out of Frank a position for Von that had required a fair bit of manipulation. She worked hard, she treated people with respect and patients with compassion, but she wasn't above manipulating Frank if that's what it took to get the job done.

He had known there was spirit in her when they had first met, but to see it in action.

So here he was, on a date with someone he found dull, and he knew a big part of it was Gabrielle. How on earth could Taylor compete with the fantastic few days he had spent with Gabrielle? He started to feel a little bad. Taylor may be vapid, but it wasn't her fault his mind was wandering. "I had a good time," he repeated dumbly.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked.

"I have an early start tomorrow," he lied. He had the day off.

She pouted. At eighteen and very attractive, she was used to getting things he own way when it came to men. She had been delighted when Rebecca had said her brother had agreed to date her. She had had a wonderful time, high on the buzz of being on a date with a good-looking surgeon eight years older than her. And she had thought he had had a good time, too. Hadn't he said as much? So what was wrong. "You don't have to stay the night," she said with a lilting laugh. "Just... for a coffee."

He found himself turned off by her attempts to sound like a seductive woman. "Taylor, if I don't get enough sleep, I make mistakes in surgery," he said sternly.

"Sorry," she said in a small voice, thinking how sexy it sounded when Jack talked about his responsibilities as a surgeon. She leaned over to kiss him and in doing so, slid her hand across his leg and then inside his thigh. "I'm not a virgin, if that's what you're worried about," she said suggestively before she shoved her tongue in his mouth.

He yanked her hand off his leg. "Not interested," he said. "Find someone your own age and get the hell out of my car." She looked at him with keen disappointment, and he felt a little bad for being so short with her but what did she think was going to happen? He sighed. It was his own damn fault for agreeing to go out with someone so young. She got out of the car and he watched her go into the house more out of a sense of responsibility to see her in the door than actual interest, and he started the car and headed home.

Halfway there, he decided he didn't want to sit alone and changed directions, heading instead to Cougars. It was a Friday night, and there had to be _someone_ there he knew.

He was in luck. Dan, Erica, Bart, Cate and Gabrielle were there. _Gabrielle_. For a second, Jack thought about just going home. He wasn't sure he was in the mood to deal with having her sitting across from him, not after such a boring night whose lack of success was largely because his mind kept drifting to her. But then Dan spotted him and waved him over and Jack knew he had no choice. He got himself a beer and sat down with the rest of them.

"How did it go?" Dan asked, although obviously it hadn't gone well or he wouldn't be here. It was ten o'clock on a Friday night, dates – or at least _good_ dates – were only just getting started. He had been pleased when Jack had said he had a date; he knew better than most how little a social life he had and had hoped having a girlfriend might liven him up a bit. But apparently it wasn't to be, at least not this time.

Jack made a face and took a long swig of beer. The bitter beverage tasted good after Taylor's kiss, "That well, huh?" Dan asked dryly,

"The words _clingy_ and _vapid_ come to mind," Jack said. "I forgot there's an age where people 'do' a lot of things."

"Huh?"

"Student, waitress, barmaid, babysitter, doesn't actually do one thing with her life."

"Not all of us got to cruise through uni on a scholarship and stipend, Jack," Cate teased. She got a filthy look for her troubles.

Jack downed the rest of his beer. "From now on, I'm not dating anyone younger than twenty-one," he declared.

"'Cos dating someone older works out _so_ well for you." Sometimes, Cate didn't know when to keep her mouth shut.

"I'm serious. I have better things to do than waste my time on dumb girls. I want something more substantial." He glowered at Cate when she gave him a disbelieving look. He tried not to look at Gabrielle, but it was hard. She was wearing jeans and a yellow top that suited her much better than her uniform, and her hair was flowing loosely. He remembered playing with her hair when they were in bed together, twisting the strands around his fingers. He just _knew_ she used the same strawberry-scented shampoo.

Jack threw himself into regaling the group with stories about Taylor's behaviour during dinner, exaggerating more and more until he had everyone in stitches. God, it felt good to hang out with people his own age. The drunker he got, the more he decided dating eighteen-year-olds was dumb – and the more difficult it became to pretend Gabrielle wasn't there. There was no way the smell of strawberry-scented shampoo could permeate the ingrained smell of beer at Cougars, but nonetheless, Jack was convinced he could smell it.

Across the table, Gabrielle watched Jack become drunker and more gregarious as the night went on. God, but he was a good-looking man, even more so since he had dressed up for his date, dress pants and a matching jacket instead of jeans, and the solid colour of his shirt was that little bit more dignified than the stripes and square patterns that he tended to wear to work. She found herself thinking about undoing those buttons one by one, exposing that hard, bare chest a few centimetres at a time. She found herself staring at the top of his shirt where he'd undone the first button and remembered how much he had liked having kisses trailed along his collarbone. _Stop it!_ She told herself. Thinking about him this way wasn't achieving anything; it was only making it harder for her. The last thing she needed was to get involved with someone, and she definitely couldn't get involved with Jack.

Damn, she wished his eyes wouldn't sparkle like that.

"Mate, I think you need to leave your car here," Dan said several hours and even more pints later. "I'll drive you home." Jack agreed, and he and Dan headed for his car. They drove in silence for a few minutes before Dan ventured, "Hey, is something going on between you and Gabrielle?"

Good as he was at hiding his feelings, Jack was too drunk _not_ to react. "Like what?" he asked.

"Like... I dunno, but whenever you guys are in the room together there's this weird vibe between you. You're awkward around each other like a pair of teenagers. Tonight was like – I could have sworn she looked _jealous_ when you were talking about your date. And she was staring at you."

"She was not!" Had she been? Jack was flattered by the thought. But she couldn't possibly be jealous. _She_ had been the one to put the kibosh on them seeing each other and besides, she was a mature woman, she had no reason to be jealous of a silly girl who was still a teenager.

"Maybe you would have noticed if you'd been looking in every direction but hers," Dan countered. "Seriously, dude, what's up? Other people are going to notice. _Frank_ is going to notice."

"We slept together," Jack admitted. It actually felt good to tell someone.

Dan was so shocked he almost hit the accelerator instead of the brake. "You did _what_? Jesus Christ, Jack, didn't you learn from Deanna? Frank will skin you alive if he finds out."

"No he won't, because it didn't happen when she was working here. Look, do you remember when Vincent made me take that leaves of absence?" Jack asked. Dan nodded. His mother's death had hit him harder than he cared to admit and Vincent had made him take two weeks off. "Bec and I went to this little town for her mate's eighteenth and I met Gabrielle there – that's where she's from. We spent a few nights together – I wanted her to come back to Sydney with me." Jack found himself telling Dan everything, including about Steve attempting to rape her. "She insisted she belonged there and I never thought I'd see her again, I don't know why she changed her mind but she doesn't want to get involved with me. I can't stop thinking about her."

"Whoa," Dan said. He had fully expected Jack to admit to being attracted to her, maybe even to have slept together when they got drunk one night – he seemed to have a talent for that – but not this. "Well, what are you going to do about it?" he asked.

"What exactly _can_ I do, Dan? She doesn't want to go out with me."

"No, she doesn't want to go out with someone with your reputation," Dan corrected.

Jack shrugged. "Same dif."

"You really think you guys can just go on like this? Jack, if _I've_ noticed it, someone else will. Why don't you, I dunno, talk to her. Arrange something."

"Like what, Dan? A secret rendezvous? No thanks. I'd rather go on as I am now."'

Dan was surprised at that, just as he had been surprised by Jack's declaration that he wasn't interested in silly young women anymore. But then, living with Jack these last few months had taught Dan that there was a lot more to Jack that met the eye.

* * *

Gabrielle was walking through the ED, her face buried in the paperwork Frank had just handed her. Frank had taken full advantage of the fact Gabrielle was keen to prove herself despite her youth, and didn't complain too much when Frank weighed her down with his paperwork as well as her own. Besides, she knew how to get on with admin, and Frank's responsibility or not, it made for a much more peaceful ED when she dealt with them.

She was only half looking where she was going, so she didn't see Jack until she had run straight into him. It was practically like running into a brick wall. A brick wall with arms of steel that wrapped themselves securely around her waist before she toppled both of them over.

In his embrace, the memories of their time together came flooding back. The way he held her that was both strong and sensitive at the same time. The way he kissed her. The way he twisted her hair through his fingers when she was lying in his arms, her head against his bare chest, feeling it rise and fall rhythmically, feeling his heart beat. The smell of sex mixed with deodorant and aftershave. She could feel herself becoming turned on in such close proximity to him.

He didn't want to let her go. She felt so good in his arms, like she belonged there, like she was made to be in his arms. She did still use that strawberry shampoo. He remembered all too clearly that she wasn't that much shorter than him and that it would take almost no effort for him to pull her chin up so she was perfectly angled to kiss her. He remembered how she had screamed in his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist tight enough to impede the circulation of blood and found himself becoming turned on.

He pushed her away, thinking that if he didn't, he would soon embarrass himself in front of everyone. He felt the heat in his pants and groped for the nearest chair, wheeling himself so he was seated under the desk. He made a show of looking up patient information at the computer until he felt OK to come out from under the table. He hurried out of the ED and did everything he could to avoid it for the rest of the week.

Having scurried to the security of the office she shared with Frank, Gabrielle was trying to collect herself as well. She had been deluding herself if she thought there was no chemistry between them. There had been chemistry from the moment they had met, and seeing each other all the time and not being together only made that chemistry all the more apparent. She could still feel his arms around her, could vividly recall his hands roaming her body. Not to mention that mouth.

She sighed in frustration. She wasn't in a position to let anyone into her life, and she especially couldn't let Jack into her life.

* * *

_She was wearing a thin white cotton sundress that did little to hide her figure. She moved towards him until she was kneeling on the bed and for a second, all he could do was stare at her. He had almost forgotten what she looked like under her practical, concealing uniform. He felt his mouth go dry._

_She reached over to touch his arm and it broke down any restraint he had. He reached for her and kissed her hard. She kissed him back just as hungrily, wrapped her arms around his neck, pushed her body hard against his so there wasn't a gap between them. Without breaking the kiss he pushed her onto her back, climbing on top of her, pressing his body down on her. She welcomed the weight and pulled at his t-shirt so he was naked from the waist up. She remembered how much he liked it when she ran kisses across his collarbone._

_He pulled up her dress until it was pooled around her armpits – no bra – and lavished kisses over her breasts. She arched her back and whimpered with pleasure. "Jack," she called his name. "Jack,"_

_He pulled down her panties with unimaginable ease and his boxers soon joined them on the floor. He didn't need to see if she was ready; he already knew she was ready for him, just as she knew without seeing that he was rock hard. He spread her legs and kneeled between them, pausing for a second before he plunged deep inside her. She screamed with pleasure and dug her nails into his back. "JACK!"_

_He was pounding her hard and fast, and she responded by meeting his thrusts with surprising agility. She was shaking uncontrollably now as she climaxed, and he knew he was going to climax at the same time, and that it would be explosive..._

Jack bolted upright in bed. The dream had been so vivid that it took him the better part of a minute for it to fully sink in that it _had_ only been a dream. He could swear the musky smell of sex lingered in the air.

Once it fully sunk in what had happened, he got out of bed and stripped it. He'd need a shower now, and to make the bed over again. He ran his hand through his hair. He couldn't believe that had just happened. He hadn't had a wet dream since he'd been seventeen; in fact, he prided himself on the fact that he didn't _need_ such an outlet for his sexual energy, he could always find someone to share his bed. _This is getting out of hand_, he thought miserably. And he couldn't do anything about it.

The next day he couldn't find an excuse to avoid going to the ED, so he was forced to go down. He cringed when he saw Gabrielle, but there was no getting around passing her. At the moment he was about to, the ambos came by wheeling a patient through and they were forced to flatten themselves against the wall to let the ambos pass. His arm brushed against hers and he felt as if his skin was on fire, a wonderful, sensual fire that brought something out in him, made him feel alive in the way she had done a year ago, made him want to take her in his arms and to hell with people talking.

This had gone on long enough.

He followed her into her office and locked the door behind them. "Jack, what are you doing?" she asked him when she saw what he was doing. God help her, when Jack's arm had brushed against hers, she had felt something, and a part of her had wanted to throw caution to the wind and get it on with him then and there. But she couldn't.

Jack lunged towards her and had her in his arms in a second. "Jack!"she admonished him. God, was this a dream? So many times in these passing weeks she had found herself thinking about him, fantasising about giving into their attraction, that she wasn't sure if this was real or a fantasy that just _felt_ real.

He brought his mouth crushing down on hers. One arm was wrapped tightly around her waist, the other supporting her head, ripping out the pins that held it up so it was loose the way he liked it. He thrust his tongue into her mouth much the same way Taylor had done to him, except both of them wanted it. Desperately, Despite every bit of common sense in her body screaming that this was a bad idea, she kissed him back, her kisses fuelled with hunger and pent-up desire, She whispered an empty protest when he undid the first two buttons of her uniform shirt and plunged his hand down the inside of her shirt, cupping her breast as if they were in the privacy of a bedroom, but she arched her back in pleasure even as she was protesting. Almost against her will, her hands went around his back, pulling up his shirt, running her hands along the bare skin of his back.

He grabbed her hips and lifted her onto the desk. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he thrust his crotch against her thigh to demonstrate his desire. Having made his point, Jack pulled away. "We want each other," he panted. She nodded, knowing she couldn't deny it at this point. She would have let Jack take her on her desk just then. She blushed to think that she had taken such leave of her senses. "If you don't let me come over tonight, I'll end up fucking your brains out in a consult room." She blushed even harder at the crass way he put it, and yet... she knew exactly what he meant. They had an animal attraction that couldn't be denied; trying to deny it had only got them in this situation. But the idea of letting Jack in like that...

Jack took her lack of response as uncertainty, and he kissed her again, this time undoing another two buttons. If Frank walked in on them at this point,,, "OK!" she agreed. "But... you can't come over. My place is still a mess and I only have a single bed," she found herself rambling, grasping for a suitable excuse as to why Jack couldn't come over. She thought quickly. "Dan's on the night shift tomorrow, I'll come over then."

Jack wasn't happy, but it was better than nothing, "Tomorrow night," he agreed, giving her a look so she understood that there was no wriggling out of it.

"Is there anything I need to bring?" she asked.

He had to grin at that. It was a booty call, not a soiree. Typical Gabrielle with little idea of such distinctions, it was what he loved about her. "Just bring yourself," he said. He went to leave the office now that he was a bit calmer and knowing he would be seeing her tomorrow night. "Oh, and Gabrielle?" he asked, turning to face her.

"Yeah?"

"No bra. I like easy access." He took great delight in watching her blush to her roots and made his exit before she could say anything.

* * *

"Cheeky bugger," she said after he had left and she had managed to get hold of herself. But it was part of his occasionally crass charm that she had liked from day one.

"Hi," she greeted him shyly. She knew why she was here, but actually being here... she had never expected she would be here, and she was still apprehensive about it. She knew Jack wanted a relationship with her, knew she needed to keep him at arm's length somehow. Something told her that wasn't going to be easy.

"Hey," he said. "Come in." She entered the house. She wasn't sure exactly what she had been expecting, but seeing the state of things in his house – car and gaming magazines everywhere and every imaginable piece of gaming console in a semi-circle around the TV. Jack had never struck her as much of a gamer. "That's mostly Dan's," Jack said, noticing her expression. "Although he's getting me hooked on it. Anyway..." He turned to embrace her. He had far better things to talk about than what it was like sharing a house with Dan. He kissed her deeply and possessively. He could scarcely believe she was actually here. He had been half-convinced that she would blow him off – was it possible to stand someone up when you were going over to their place?

But here she was. He wrapped one arm tightly around her waist, pulling her against him. He could feel her breasts against his chest, and it struck him that she really hadn't worn a bra. He grinned inwardly at that. She had to be just a _little_ keen on him to follow such a crass request. "I wanted this for so long," he murmured huskily, planting kisses along her face and neck.

"I've only been here for a month," she protested at what she thought was hyperbole.

"I wanted this since I left last year," he corrected, realising as he spoke the words how true they were. A few days ago, Charlotte had made a comment that Gabrielle reminded her of the compassionate, sincere side that Deanna showed to Jack and Jack only, except Gabrielle was actually genuine. It had made him wonder if that had been what had attracted Deanna to him.

Well, that didn't matter now. All that mattered that Gabrielle was here, in his house, in his arms, about to be in his bed... He broke off the kiss so he could swing her into his arms. Gabrielle yelped with surprise. She had forgotten how strong Jack was. He carried her into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him, and laid her on the bed with a restraint that he didn't feel. He climbed on top of her and resumed kissing her. She kissed him back and brought her hands under his shirt. The muscles in his back tensed and relaxed as she ran her fingers across the bare flesh. She'd never met someone who liked to be touched like Jack – and who liked to touch so much.

He ran his hands down her front to where her shirt ended and slowly pulled it up until it came above her waist. "Don't," she said. "I – I had my appendix out last year and I have a bad scar from it."

"I don't care," he said, surprised that she did. What did one little scar matter? He went back to pulling up her shirt.

"Jack, _no_!" she protested more vehemently. "Sorry," she said when she saw the hurt in his eyes at her harsh tone. "I just... I don't want you to see it. Please, can't you respect that?"

"Of course." He didn't need reminding that she had suffered for years with a man who didn't respect that her body was her own. "I'm sorry, it's just not that big a deal to me. Whenever you're ready." Just to make her feel better, he hit the touch-pane on his bedside lamp so it was at its lowest level. He still wanted to be able to see her a _little_. He went back to kissing her, careful to keep his hands on her back until he had worked his way high enough to steer clear of even the worst of appendectomy scars. She sighed with pleasure and threw back her head when he started kissing her breasts. God, but this wasn't nearly as fun when he couldn't see her clearly. "You're so sexy," he murmured. She squirmed with pleasure at that. The way he said it, she truly believed he meant it.

She reached for his shirt and started unbuttoning it. His bare chest was exactly as she had remembered it, and she was a little sorry she had made such a big deal about the scar, now that he had dimmed the light she couldn't see him as well. She ran her fingers lightly over his chest, and revelled in it when he bucked against her. He retaliated by unbuttoning and unzipping her skirt and pulling it down her legs so apart from her shirt, pulled up under her arms, she was only wearing her panties. "Jack," she whimpered when he ran his fingers over the thing material that stood between him and what he'd been thinking about for the past month, for the past year. She fluttered her fingers nervously at the waistband of his jeans, and he whispered words of encouragement to move her hand down to find out just how much he'd been thinking about her.

In her intangible fantasies, she had forgotten how big he was. She stifled a giggle to remember telling Steve how he fell way short of Jack in that department – and others. "I want you so much," he whispered gutturally into her ear. "I want to be inside you so much it _hurts_." Even now, his hardness was pressing against his jeans painfully, and he wasn't sure how much of it was real and how much of it was his imagination, his driving hunger for her.

She tensed slightly at that, remembering. "Jack... do you have condoms?" she asked. She had forgotten to pick them up on her way and besides, she knew she would be embarrassed to get them. She had never bought condoms in her life. Not that Steve had been a big fan of them.

"Yeah," he said, a little disappointed. He hated using them, but he preferred it to the possible alternatives. He reached up to his dresser, opened the top drawer with a certain amount of finesse and pulled the box out. "Anything else?" he asked. He was aware she was nervous. He didn't see why. It wasn't like they hadn't done this before.

"Nope."

"Good." He pulled her shirt over her head and unzipped his jeans so he could be free of them. Discarding them on the floor with her shirt and skirt, his erection was all the more obvious beneath the freer confines of his boxers. He took her hand and moved it down her boxers, shuddering when she wrapped her fingers around him. He had to get inside her soon, before he embarrassed himself.

He pulled down her panties and fingered her until she was bucking uncontrollably underneath him and they were both well and truly ready. He pulled down his boxers, put on the condom and positioned himself between her kegs. "You ready?" he asked. She nodded. Of course she was. He thrust inside her, burying himself as far as he could go. He heard her gasp as the impact hit her. She was just as tight and wet as he remembered, and the sensation urged him on. He thrust hard, knowing he was already on the brink. His fingers worked frantically between her legs, bringing her to orgasm before lust betrayed him and he thrust a final time with a drawn-out groan, burying his face in her neck. "Wow," he said when he was able to speak.

"Yeah," she panted. She reluctantly unwrapped her legs from around his waist so he could pull out before the condom slipped off. She understood now what guys meant about it not being nearly as fun with a condom; she had only known that sex could be fun with Jack, but even with that limited experience, she knew it would be that much more pleasurable without the barrier.

But she couldn't take that chance. The consequences terrified her.

Self-consciously, she put on her panties and shirt before she let Jack cuddle her. "I'm glad we did this," he murmured in her ear.

"Me, too," she said.

She was lying on her side and he was propped up on his elbow behind her, his chest against her back. He stroked her arm idly, taking note of the implant under her skin. He made a mental note to get a fresh battery of tests done; he'd gotten them done after finding out what a two-faced bitch Deanna was, but getting an STD was clearly as issue for her if she wanted to use a condom despite being on birth control, so he'd humour her on that. God knew, he knew how it felt to realise someone he thought he could trust had given him an STD. Only half-consciously he kissed her shoulder sympathetically. "So what happens now?" he asked.

"How do you mean?"

"Frank needs to know. He does, Gabs," he insisted when he felt Gabrielle tense up. "I've screwed him over twice now getting involved with his NUM – and I know you're giving me that look, he sees you as his staff whether you do or not. He'll cut my balls off if he finds out through someone _other_ that me that I've done it again."

"No."

"Gabrielle –"

"Don't 'Gabrielle' me. You tell him anything and there'll be nothing more _to_ tell 'cos I won't see you anymore."

This wasn't going the way he had intended it to. Oh, he got that she'd want time to keep their relationship quiet for a while before the exposed themselves to hospital gossip, but surely she understood the position he was in? He thought about it, and decided that of the two evils, he'd rather risk Frank's wrath than not see Gabrielle again. And he understood why she was so scared to have her name linked with his. Steve had put her through so much, and he, Jack, was crazy about her. He figured he could humour her a little. "Fine," he said, trying to keep the sullen tone out of his voice.

She felt bad, she knew he was disappointed. "If we get caught out, I'll tell him I insisted," she offered.

Well, at least she was talking about being caught out like she intended this to be an ongoing thing. "So we'll do this again?" he asked.

"Well, I didn't come over intended to be your latest one-night stand," she said, flashing him a grin.

"As I recall, I wanted you to be more than a one-night stand before the night was over," he reminded her. He eased her onto her back so he could kiss her, and before too long, they were going at it again.

A few hours later, she stirred in his arms. "Jack, I have to go," she said.

He misunderstood her. "Bathroom's down the hall," he said drowsily. Damn, he was just falling asleep. Nothing beat falling asleep in the arms of someone you were crazy about.

"No, I mean I have to go home."

"Why?"

"I don't sleep well in strange beds."

"Give it a few weeks, you'll be just as familiar with it as you are your own bed," he said with a grin. He went to wrap his arms around her but she pulled away from him and reached for her skirt. "You're seriously going?" he asked.

"Yes, Jack. I have to work tomorrow. I can't stay up all night unable to sleep. Look, I'll come over again soon, OK?" she offered, knowing he was disappointed, knowing she couldn't push him too far too soon.

He looked at her in confusion. "Why don't I just come over to yours?" he asked. "Then you won't have to wait until Dan's on night shift to come over."

"I'll think about it." She had no intention of doing so.

Seeing Gabrielle was determined to go home, Jack reluctantly got out of bed, dressed and saw her to her car. He kissed her passionately before he let her get in, and he watched her drive off before he headed back into the house, wanting more than anything in the world to fall asleep with her in his arms.


	3. Chapter 3

"Harder, Jack, _harder_!" Gabrielle screamed. She wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and raked her nails down his back. If he had been focused on anything other than the intense pleasure of the moment, it would have _hurt_. As it was, it only added to the moment.

He pounded her furiously, loving the feeling of her warm wetness around him, her body grinding against his, her mouth on his when it wasn't on his neck and collarbone, leaving marks on his skin. He felt her start to climax, and brought her to orgasm screaming his name. He shuddered in his own climax. Everytime, it seemed to be more intense. He sometimes wondered if the condom could take it. What one little bit of rubber against the raging tide of his passion?

He motioned for her to unwrap her legs so he could withdraw. They had been seeing each other – and he used the term loosely – for three weeks now, and every time the condom became more of an aggravation until that little bit of latex felt more like a rubber wall between them. He wanted to feel her properly.

Panting, she grinned at him. "I never thought sex could be so much fun," she said. "I'm acting like a complete slut."

"Yeah? I've I'd known what a firecracker you would be given a little encouragement, I would have _insisted_ that you come back to Sydney with me."

She responded by cuddling up to him. Sex with Jack was amazing – she had forgotten just how much so. The only problem was that he kept trying to get closer to her. He kept wanting to take her out on dates. So far she had held him at arm's length, but she knew he would only get more persistent with time.

He rolled onto his back. "I got you something," he said.

She brightened. "A present?" she asked.

"Not quite." He reached into his dresser and pulled out a piece of paper. "Here."

She took it and glanced at it. "What is this?" she asked, knowing exactly what it was.

"What does it look like?"

"It looks like the results of a blood test," she said flatly. She should have known this was something else Jack would persist with. He didn't like using condoms and didn't see why he had to, if she was on birth control. To him, the only thing she had to be worried about was getting an STD. She could never make him understand it went back deeper than that.

"Yep. I figured you were a little gun-shy about not using a condom 'cos of Steve." He tried not to blame her. He knew from personal experience how humiliating it was to discover someone you thought you could trust with your life had given you an STD. But he wasn't Steve, and he felt she ought to know that by now. "I thought it might put your mind at ease to know I'm completely clean. It's only what I expect from you, of course, but once you've been tested yourself, we can stop using them."

She turned away from him. "No," she said simply.

He tried not to be hurt by her immediately refusal. "You _do_ trust me not to play around on you, don't you?" he asked softly.

She knew she had hurt his feelings, and felt awful for it. "I do," she said. "I just don't want to stop using condoms."

"Why not?"

"Just because."

"That's not an answer, Gabrielle." His gut wrenched to think of the most obvious reason why she wouldn't want to stop using condoms; that she was afraid a battery of tests might show something. He couldn't bring himself to pursue it, so he backed off.

They both knew that wasn't the last of the subject.

* * *

"Fuck! I'm on night shifts _again_ all next week," Dan complained.

Cate peered over Dan's shoulder to look at the rosters. He was too. _Poor guy_. And had been for the last few weeks. "What did you do to piss Gabrielle off so badly? Hit on her?" So far, she was impressed with her new boss. Not that Gabrielle had to do much to impress after Deanna, Nelson and Dan. But she had done nothing to veer from Cate's original impression that she was compassionate and professional. If she had put Dan on night shifts for several weeks in a row, Dan must have done something to really piss her off.

"No!" Dan said indignantly. Damn, but he knew _exactly_ what had happened. She and Jack had hooked up, and she was using her position as his boss to get him out of the house at nights. He scowled. Why couldn't they go to _her_ place?

He confronted Jack at home. "I know you're seeing her again," he said. "And I don't appreciate being put on night shifts so you can get laid."

Jack's back was immediately up, both because of Dan's hypocrisy, his blunt anger and the fact that Gabrielle wouldn't need to put Dan on night shifts if she let Jack go over to her place. "At least you have something to do and somewhere to go when I want to get laid," he shot back, too angry to bother denying that he and Gabrielle were seeing each other. Although 'seeing each other' was a loose term, since she only came over to have sex with him and never stayed the night, let alone went anywhere in public with him. It wasn't a situation he was particularly happy with, but she had made it clear that it was that or nothing. Jack was hoping that in time, she might soften – once she realised that he was a decent guy who cared about her.

Dan scowled at Jack's reference. It was true, he hadn't been very nice to Jack over Bianca Frost, an opinion shared by a lot of people in light of what a cow she had turned out to be. "Yeah, so you should know exactly what it feels like," Dan countered. "Which makes me think – why don't you go to _her_ place?" he asked sweetly.

Jack shrugged. "She prefers coming to mine. She says her house is a mess and she only has a single."

Dan tried _really_ hard not to smirk at that, and if it had been Deanna they had been dealing with, he would have come out and said it; that it made far more sense for Jack to go to Gabrielle's, who lived by herself, and save them both the hassle of dealing with a housemate who was also her subordinate. Anyone else and Dan would have been convinced she had something to hide. "I'll do _one_ night shift," he offered as a compromise.

"Two," Jack countered. "And a third night you crash at Ricki's." Three nights was about all he could squeeze out of his own schedule, anyway, especially since he couldn't tell Vincent what he wanted the nights off for. And Gabrielle _had_ kind of overdone it, putting Dan on _all_ night shifts several weeks in a row. Even Bianca hadn't stopped to dumping the graveyard shifts on him to get him out of the house, and Gabrielle was an infinite improvement on Bianca in terms of being al all-around decent human being.

"Deal," Dan said. He'd been willing to settle for four nights a week on; after all, that still gave him three nights a week in his own bed, which was better than he had given Jack. "But if I don't see an improvement next weeks –"

"I know, I'll talk to her."

Dan's eyes narrowed at the way Jack said that, quickly, like he wanted the matter dropped before Dan started making inquiries. "No-one else knows, do they?" he asked. "You haven't told Frank, have you?"

"No," Jack admitted. "Don't you _dare_ think of blackmailing me, Dan," Jack said in a tone that put the thought the furtherest in Dan's mind. Jack was not someone you pushed too far, Dan was beginning to realise.

"Wasn't implying anything," Dan lied. "I just think you're skating on thin ice if you think you can keep it from him. You _know_ it's going to be a hundred times worse if he finds out through the grapevine." _Like he did with Terri and Deanna_, Dan didn't have to add.

"I know that, Dan, alright. Look... it's her choice and she's been jerked around by guys before." One guy in particular. "I don't want to force her to do something she doesn't want to and I certainly don't want to go behind her back."

"Your choice," Dan said, making it clear that he didn't think much of Jack's choice.

* * *

"You need to stop putting Dan on nights all week," Jack told Gabrielle the next time he saw her. "He's threatened to complain to admin, or worse, tell Frank."

She immediately tensed up. "You didn't say anything, did you?" she asked accusingly.

"I didn't have to. He wanted to know if there was something going on between us – this was before we got together – and I told him about Widgee. Once we got together, he put two and two together. Between us not acting like dogs in heat and him getting stuck on night shifts week after week, you can't really blame him for working it out."

"You shouldn't have said anything to begin with."

Her paranoia over their being found out was becoming increasingly annoying. So what if people knew they were seeing each other? OK, so he might have a reputation as being something of a player, but once people saw them together and got used to them being a couple, they'd forget about it and they'd become another institutional couple at the hospital. Like Vincent and Charlotte, except together. "What, I owed you my silence when we weren't even together?" Jack asked, trying not to sound _too_ irritable. "You can trust him, OK. He knows when to keep his mouth shut." Which was when Jack threatened him with bodily harm.

"Fine. I'll take him off nights."

"We have a deal. Two nights and one night crashing at Ricki's. And I think he would have given me more," he added ruefully.

"How come?" Gabrielle asked. She thought briefly of Ashley, who would _never_ have agreed to nights to let her best friend get laid.

"Ah, he took a lot of crap from the way he treated me with Bianca. And I may have stuck the boot in a bit," he admitted.

Gabrielle let it go. She decided she must mean something to Jack if he resorted to sticking the boot in on his best mate.

"But look, I was thinking," Jack started after a pause, and Gabrielle knew from the apprehensive tone of his voice that she wasn't going to like it. "This wouldn't be a problem if I came over to your place. And I could stay the night, too," he added pointedly. He hated that she left after only a few hours.

"I told you, my place is a mess, and I only have a single."

He had heard that excuse so many times now, and he was sick of it. He reached over to the side of the bed where he kept his bag and reached for his chequebook. He quickly scribbled out a cheque and handed it to her. "What's this?" she asked.

"A cheque for seven hundred and fifty dollars," he said. "That will pay for a Queen, and I'll help you with the cleaning."

For a second, she could only stare at him. She couldn't remember when Steve had ever offered to pay for the expenses that she had incurred as a result of their being together; he just accepted it as her due. Jack wanted to be with her, and if he had to pay to get obstacles out of the way... and seven hundred and fifty dollars was a decent amount of only a resident surgeon. It made her think that if he cared enough about her, wanted to be with her that much, then maybe she could tell him the truth...

_The truth_. She scowled, thinking about it, and her scowl was close enough to an indignant glower. She theatrically ripped up the cheque. "How dare you!" she said. "I'm not some- hooker you can pay for the privilege of having sex!"

He stared at her. Putting up the money for a bed so he could stay over was _not_ the same as paying her as a prostitute. He bit back a retort that neither was he a john who could be left as soon as the deed was done.. He bit back another retort that if she thought he was paying her to be a hooker, less than a grand for several nights a week for several weeks was way underselling herself. It took him several seconds to regain his composure. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't insulting you. I just... want to be with you. The money doesn't mean anything to me compared to that."

She softened. "I know," she said. "I'm just... so defensive. Please, can you give me more time?"

"OK," he agreed reluctantly.

She stayed longer that she meant to, falling asleep in his arms. It was so easy, when he was so strong and sexy and she felt so safe in his arms... she was jolted awake by her phone going off.

Jack had been jolted awake by the phone call too, and he had been about to issue a complaint about leaving her phone on if she was likely to have people call her at odd hours. But he held his tongue. It was underhanded and deceitful, two things he had promised he would never be to Gabrielle, but... she had been acting odd ever since they had gotten together, and he wanted to know what was up. Why didn't she want him to come over? If she couldn't afford her own bed – and he knew how much she made, first-level management was a pittance in almost _any_ industry, let alone nursing – she could have suggested it be a loan. Hell, _he_ would have been happy to suggest it as a no-interest loan if he'd known how upset it would make her.

He didn't understand her, or the way she reacted sometimes. Like how she wouldn't let him see her scar. It was just a freaking scar, for heaven's sakes. Like they all didn't have them – just some more obvious than others. She constantly held him at arm's length. He wanted her to let him in. He wanted her to let him _love_ her.

So, not understanding why she did what she did, he kept quiet and pretended to be asleep while she answered the phone.

"Yeah, I know, I'm late... I'm sorry. I fell asleep at work... well, of course they didn't think I was there, admin hours finish at five, so they thought no-one was in the office... look, I'll be there in half an hour and I'll make it up to you... see you then." An Gabrielle hung up. She turned to kiss Jack on the cheek, thinking that he was asleep, before she left.

Jack's blood had turned cold when he heard that conversation. Who had she been talking to? Who had expected her home earlier, who did she have to make it up to?

His heart told him that there was an explanation, but his gut told him he already had the one he needed.

* * *

"Paul! It's so good to see you!"Gabrielle cried when she saw her childhood friend Paul Croft on the doorstep. "How is everyone? Especially Julia?" Julia, her best friend since forever. She felt a bit bad now that she had up and left Widgee without telling anyone where she had gone. "How did you find me?" she asked.

"Through Brad," Paul admitted. Brad Walker, who had figured that if Gabrielle had gone anywhere, it had been to another nursing position in the country... and since he worked with the Royal Flying Doctors, he had access to that database. "Don't worry, only me, Jules and Brad know where you are. But we told your dad that you're fine and happy."

_Her dad_. He had said something particularly nasty in the heat of the moment and she had been to proud and stubborn to care that he hadn't meant it. She wished she could go back now. She realised now she had far more people who cared about her and would protect her until their dying breath in Widgee than she had here.

But she had made her bed. She would sleep in it.

Her phone rang. She answered it. "Hi, Jack," she said. "Not tonight, I'm having a friend over. I know I promised, but I'll see you tomorrow... OK, Wednesday then. I'll see you then." And she hung up the phone.

Paul stared at her. "Is that the same Jack who –" he started to ask.

"Yes," she answered.

He whistled. "Wow," he said. "We were wondering why you went all the way to Sydney when Canberra was closer."

She made a face. "All Saints was the first place that would give me a NUMs job, given my age. I found out later that the ED boss is such an ogre that they would take _anyone_ with any experience. Jack happened to be working at that hospital. And we got together after that. It was hard, being around each other all the time," was all she would admit to.

Which, Paul's mind, actually meant they were totally hot for each other, and she had kept him at arm's length over that bothersome little thing... "Does he know?" Paul asked.

She flushed red. "No."

"Don't you think he has a right to?"

"No. He already has to make up for Steve's abuse sexually. He doesn't need to take responsibility for anything else he did."

"He sounds like a decent guy, Gabs. Maybe you should trust him. You trust me, don't you?" he asked.

"Of course I do. I've known you for as long as I've been alive." They both smiled at that. She had been best mates with his younger sister Julia, so naturally they had fallen into the quasi-romance that children do, and had declared themselves engaged at aged seven. The marriage hadn't happened, but they had remained good friends for going on twenty years now.

"You need to start trusting other people," he said.

Suddenly, she looked forty instead of twenty-four. "How can I trust a man I barely know after what Steve did to me?" she asked.

"If it makes you feel better," Paul offered, "Ashley had her license stripped after a patient died on her watch. Without a nursing degree, all she's good for is being a prostitute – although I'm sure that pays better for the hours," he said with a tone of contempt. Ashley Jones's HIV-ridden body could rot in the Murray-Darling for all he cared. "And Julia hounded Steve out of town. I think he forgot you had a powerful ally in her." Gabrielle had to smile at that. Julia and Paul Croft. The darlings of Widgee. Son and daughter of the Mayor, who's family had founded the town. If Steve had thought he could run afoul of the Jaegers, it hadn't occurred to him that in doing so, he might run afoul of the Crofts, which was an infinitely worse situation.

"I can't tell Jack," she insisted stubbornly. "He won't understand."

Paul knew that look. It was the best-not-push-Gabrielle look. He had known her all her life, and he knew how stubborn she could be. He remembered when she had been five years old, had taken a nasty tumble and badly scraped her leg along the gravel road and refused to let him carry her home. He remembered when she had been fifteen and her mother had died and she had refused to let anyone be there for her, insisting that she had to be a rock for her father and brother. Gabrielle accepted help from no-one, never had. She was tough and proud and stubborn, and Paul had long ago learnt that it was best not to try and use logic on her. If she wanted to deny herself the love and support that this Jack seemed more than capable of giving her, well, he wasn't going to start interfering. _Poor girl, though_, he found himself thinking. If only she would let go of her pride and let people take care of her like she had taken care of so many people –

"You look tired," he said sympathetically. "When was the last time you cut loose and had some fun?"

She scowled at him. "You know I can't," she said. "I have obligations."

"Rubbish." He looked over at the Latina woman who was getting ready to leave. "What's her name and how much do you pay her?" he asked.

"Maria. And twelve-fifty an hour."

"Hey, Maria!" Paul called in the way a lot of people did when they thought speaking loudly would make themselves understood to people who didn't speak English well. The woman stopped and looked at him, and Paul pulled three fifties out of his wallet. "This. Is to stay. Overnight. So I. Can take. Gabrielle. Out."

The woman – a Puerto Rican native – glowered at him in a way which made Gabrielle look like a rank amateur. "My English is fine," she said frostily. "And I have my own family to get back to."

Paul pulled out another fifty and offered it to her. Maria looked temptingly at it. "Two-fifty," she bargained. Paul glowered, and looked ready to say something before Gabrielle jabbed him in the arm. He pulled out another fifty.

"I don't see why you have to pay her," Paul complained.

"She's just as qualified as anyone else and she costs half as much," Gabrielle explained. "And she has a family she needs to feed – _and_ go home to," Gabrielle added. She didn't blame Maria for wanting to go home when she'd been promised she could. If Gabrielle had someone – a _group_ of someones, no less – who loved her to go home to at the end of the day, she wouldn't want to stick around for a lousy one-fifty, either.

"Whatever. Let's go have some fun."

* * *

"It's been a while since I've been out," Gabrielle admitted after several drinks. She felt wonderfully giggly and light-headed. She couldn't remember the last time she felt like this. She had a lot of obligations now and she couldn't afford to get drunk and neglect them.

"I figured," Paul said dryly. The truth was, she didn't look too good. She was so pale. True, she didn't spend nearly as much time in the sun as she used to, chasing after patients and forming pseudo-emergency rooms in paddocks under the hot summer sun, but there was something more to it than that. She looked tired and weak, nothing at all like the Gabrielle he had loved enough to want to marry when he had been seven. It worried him, seeing her like this. Steve had had a rose in his position, and he had allowed her to wither like she was of no more value than a weed... and now she had a man who seemed willing and able to treat her like the rose she was, and she was too proud to admit that she was struggling to survive, let alone thrive, without that love and support.

"But I'm having fun," she said. And she was. She had missed Paul. She had missed a lot of people. What had made perfect sense at the time – to run halfway across the state – didn't seem like such a good idea now that she was with Paul, and he was making her laugh and feel good about herself in the way that only a childhood friend can.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a bunch of people from the ward, including Dan and Jack. Well, Jack technically wasn't part of the ED staff, but he spent so much time there that she often forgot that little fact. _Oh, crap_, she thought. She didn't feel like dealing with either Jack or people from the ward right now. It occurred to her that she should have taken Paul somewhere else, except she knew so few places in Sydney. "Let's get out of here," she said.

"Why? I thought you were having fun?" Gabrielle cocked her head in the direction of the table of colleagues. "Oh," Paul said, getting it. "Let's go." But he couldn't help stealing a glance in Jack's direction. He barely remembered the guy, but he was impossible to miss – tall, confident. No wonder Gabrielle had fallen for him to begin with, no wonder she hadn't been able to stay away...

"Hey, isn't that Gabrielle?" Bart asked, spotting the NUM from a few meters away. "She looks pretty drunk." It was always amusing for junior staff to see someone senior to them out of it.

Jack had been determined to forget about Gabrielle's behaviour and get drunk with friends, so Bart's question immediately got his back up. He couldn't help but turn his head to look. Yes, that was Gabrielle – and with a guy he'd never seen before. Jack watched them intently, and scowled. Quite good-looking, if you were into that kind of thing. He looked like a stupid country hick in that shirt, which made Jack wonder if she knew him from Widgee. _Bet his life's ambition is to run the wheat co-op,_ Jack thought nastily. He looked like an idiot, but he was holding her _very_ possessively, and she didn't look like she minded one bit. _Bastard_, he thought bitterly. _Dumb slut_.

Dan noticed Jack's mood suddenly deflate. It was so obvious that he was surprised no-one else picked up on it. It was like sticking a pin in a balloon at the think rubbery part at the base, and rather than bursting it, having the air escape from it. He looked like something had just taken all the air out of his body. "It might not be what you think," Dan said. "He could be...her brother," he finished lamely.

"I've met her brother, he's younger than Bec."

"He could just be a friend."

"Like I would know, I haven't met _anyone_ in her life."

"She's only been in Sydney for what, three months? He might be a friend from Widgee." Dan's words weren't making the least bit of difference to Jack's despondent mood.

"She keeps me at arm's length," Jack admitted. "She never stays over and she won't let _me_ go over _there_. She makes excuses every time, and when I try to work around her, she lashes out at me. I think she doesn't _want_ me to go over. And there's something she keeps going back to."

"Like a husband, you mean?" Dan couldn't help but asking, remembering his own brief fling with Bianca Frost. He saw Jack flinch at the suggestion, and Dan knew that thought had been festering in his brain, although he didn't care to admit to it. And Bianca had meant nothing to him but a great lay – Dan knew Jack cared about Gabrielle. "For what it's worth, she doesn't seem like that kind of woman."

"Yeah, and how do _you_ know?" Jack challenged. "How does _anyone_ know? No-one knows who she is."

And that was true, Dan realised. He hadn't thought about it, because socialising with and getting to know his bosses had never been high on his list of priorities, but Jack was right. There was something very aloof about Gabrielle, despite her warm and professional demeanour. Jack knew the most about hr private lie, and Jack himself admitted that he knew nothing about her.

That she might have a husband stashed away seemed so unlikely, but it was the only thing that really made sense. Dan hoped that Jack wasn't going to get his heart broken all over again. He had only just gotten over Deanna.

* * *

Paul answered the door. He wasn't exactly surprised to see Jack. Something had told him that Jack had seen them at Cougars, and that he wouldn't be happy. Paul didn't blame him. If he was in Jack's shoes, being kept at arm's length by a woman he cared about and then seeing her out with a strange man – Jack was obviously angry to see him, and it was on the tip of Paul's tongue to tell Jack exactly what was going on, Gabrielle be damned. "Is she here?" Jack eyes, his eyes flashing stormy grey. Gabrielle had said he had the most expressive eyes of anyone she had met, and Paul believed her.

"I'll get her," Paul said. He didn't let Jack in, instead, going to get Gabrielle.

She let herself out of the house, latching the mesh security screen door behind her so Jack couldn't push his way in. Jack took note of it. She was hiding something, always hiding something from him, he thought bitterly. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. Damn, but this was far too close for comfort.

"What were you doing with him?" he asked accusingly. "In fact, who the hell is he?"

"Just a friend," she said, far too defensively to his ears. _What was she hiding?_ "I grew up with him."

"Pretty cosy, huh?" he asked.

"Don't be like that," she said. "It's not what you think?"

"Yeah? Because from where I'm standing – and that's in front of the house you never let me into, by the way – it looks like you're shacked up wit someone," he said bitterly. "That why you keep insisting on using condoms? You're worried you might pass something on between us?"

The accusation was cutting and she tried to keep in mind the place he was coming from. He was hurting, she realising, and it hurt her to know that, and to know that he thought she was capable of cheating on him, of cheating on anyone after what Steve had put her through, but of cheating on him in particular. Jack, who was just as incapable of infidelity as she was, who would be such a great boyfriend if she was available the way he wanted her to be. "It's not what you think," she said dully.

"Yeah? Then tell me?"

"Jack... don't. OK, just _don't_. You knew from the beginning what I was willing to give to you and you made up your own mind that you would push for more, so _don't you dare_ arrive on my doorstep and complain that you're not getting what you wanted."

He stared at her. He couldn't believe she was standing there giving him this spiel about being honest. _Honest?_ She had _never_ been honest. "Go to hell," he snarled with more venom than he had told even Deanna to get the fuck out of his life.

She reacted as if he had struck her, and he took a small amount of pleasure out of it. "Don't be like this," she pleaded with him. "Don't end it like this."

_She_ had lied to him, _she_ had broken his heart, and now she was reacting like _he_ was being unreasonable? He clenched his fists and felt the urge to slap her. Instead, he just walked away. He got in his car and drove up, driving two blocks before killing the engine so he could cry.

_Get a grip_, he told himself. _She isn't worth it_. He sniffled and told himself that it was a good thing he had chosen to call it off. He could have gotten in a fight with this Paul guy, or gotten an STD, or any one of a dozen things. _I can do better than her_, he thought, and he decided that he would do just that. Hell, he knew loads of smart, beautiful woman from uni. He would ring up one of them and see if she wanted to go out. Maybe it would get around the hospital that he was seeing a smart, beautiful woman, much smarter and more beautiful than Gabrielle.

"That was the most stubbornly proud thing I have seen you do, and believe me, I've seen you do plenty," Paul said in exasperation after Jack had left. "What's your problem? He seems crazy about you."


	4. Chapter 4

"Jack, how long are you going to act like this?" Gabrielle asked Jack a few days later. He had done all he could do to avoid the ED, and when he couldn't, he was so cold towards her that she was surprised no-one had realised something was up between them.

"Like what?" he asked sullenly.

"Like a sullen schoolboy who's been deprived of a toy," she said. She knew he was hurting, but so was she.

His eyes flashed angrily at him. "You think you were a _toy_ to me?" he asked incredulously. "If I'd wanted a toy, I would have gone to Kings Cross. You're not exactly the premium thing on the market."

_There_, he thought, feeling a fission of vicious pleasure at seeing her flinch. He knew her self-esteem had suffered because of Steve's infidelity and she had questioned if it was her fault for not being able to satisfy him. Well, she had brought it upon herself. She wondered if she had become the kind of cheated-on woman who figured she may as well strike pre-emptively and engage in an open relationship... someone like Bianca Frost.

Damn, he had to remember that one. He was sure she would _hate_ being compared to Bianca Frost.

Gabrielle fought the childish urge to cry. She _hated_ being told that there were plenty of women out there better in bed than her, and Jack knew it. She tried to tell herself that he was hurting, that she knew why he was hurting even if he had it totally wrong... but that was cold comfort when he was saying things like that. "Can't we be friends?" she asked.

"You broke my fucking heart, no, I don't want to be _friends_," he snapped. He ran his hand through his hair. He didn't want to squabble with her, either. He just wanted to move on and pretend that he had never met her... and maybe in time he wouldn't feel this way. "Look, I shouldn't have come but Vincent doesn't know about us so he won't let me out of it," he said, wishing she could be like Terri and Deanna; once it had been established that it was well and truly over, they had left and he didn't have to deal with them again. "He just wanted me to drop some paperwork off." Jack dropped the papers on Frank's desk and bolted, leaving Gabrielle with the same deep sense of sadness and loss that she always felt when she dealt with Jack.

She sighed and took a sip of her coffee, trying to stay alert. She knew she was too tired to do this job, but she had no other option. She got out of her seat and went back to work.

* * *

"Gabrielle, are you OK?" Sean asked, concerned. The nurse obviously didn't look well. In fact, she hadn't looked the picture of health since she had started here, but now, she looked particularly tired and pale. It wasn't even so much as looking pale – he was English, he knew pale – she looked waxy.

"Fine," she said. "Just got up too quickly." She gripped the edge of the counter, feeling dizzy. _Damn_, she thought. She should have gone with her instinct and taken the day off. She gripped the counter tighter, her knuckles turning white under the strain, trying to do what her legs wouldn't – take the weight of her body.

"Gabrielle!" Sean yelled. He rushed towards her, but was too late to stop her from fainting and hitting her head on the counter on her way down.

* * *

"I'm reluctant to do any x-rays while she's unconscious, not while it's not urgent," Vincent said a few hours later. "She has a fever but she's only having minor trouble breathing." She didn't even need a machine for that. "It might be a post-operative infection, but from the looks of it, it's been too long ago for an infection to be cropping up _now_."

"Post operative infection," Jack repeated dully. Regardless of how he professed to feel about Gabrielle, he had followed Vincent when he had been called to Gabrielle's bed as a surgical consult, yapping at his heels in much the same way as the annoying dog Charlotte had once described him as. "She told me she had her appendix out a while ago."

Vincent looked at Jack quizzically. "You've been sleeping with her?" he asked, more as a confirmation than a question. Jack had blurted out everything when he'd been sick with worry. She was unconscious and delirious, and kept calling for Laura. Jack knew that it was her mother's name, and that Laura Jaeger had been dead for ten years, and more to the point, that people rarely called for their parent's by their Christian names. Jack nodded in conformation. "Then whoever gave you your surgical licence should be shot if you don't know the difference between and appendectomy scar and a c-section scar," he said.

Jack looked at him, completely blank. "Huh?" he asked.

Vincent realised that he had skipped several steps with Jack and wondered just how much Gabrielle had told him – and why she had bothered to hide such a thing from someone who stopped to look whenever he saw a young family. "You didn't know?" he asked.

Jack shook his head. "She was adamant I didn't touch her there, she said it made her feel ugly."

"That doesn't surprise me, whoever did it – I've known butchers who wouldn't cut up a cow like that. But I get the feeling that's not why she didn't want you to touch her there." Vincent looked Jack in the eye. "You may as well tell me everything you know, I'll find out another way."

So Jack told Vincent everything he knew, from first meeting Gabrielle over a year ago and learning about her cheating ex to having a (well-protected) fling with her to seeing her in the hospital a few months ago to getting involved with her again to things not adding up and calling it quits with her.

Vincent agreed, things didn't add up. But he had gotten to know Gabrielle and she seemed so genuine that she must have felt truly ashamed to hide something like this. "Do you know anyone we can call?" he asked. "I've tried her family's number – it doesn't exist. We may have to call every Jaeger listed in New South Wales to find them." At least now Vincent knew her family _was_ from New South Wales, Jack had confirmed that, sheepishly adding that he had triple-checked because Rebecca had only been seventeen at the time and while he didn't particularly mind if she wanted to get trashed under his watch, he _did_ mind about taking a minor over state lines. Jack wasn't too sure about Australian laws, but he knew that in the US it was illegal to take a minor who wasn't your child across state lines.

"She's living with a guy," Jack said sullenly, remembering.

Less than an hour later, Paul Croft rushed in, using the stroller he was wheeling in front of him like a battering ram. "I'm a friend of Gabrielle Jaeger's," he said. "I was told she was sick."

Frank, naturally, cut in before Vincent could say anything. "Who's Laura?" he asked.

Paul gestured towards the stroller. No point in covering for Gabrielle now. Damn, he _knew_ she wasn't well – he should have pushed her more – but then, knowing Gabrielle, she would have gone through on her promise that he never see either of them again. "_This_ is Laura," he said, indicated to the sleeping baby in an adorable pink jumpsuit. "Laura Julia Jaeger. Her daughter."

"Daughter?" Jack repeated dumbly. He intellectually got that Gabrielle must have given birth sometime in the last few months, but to actually be presented with her daughter...

"Jack, can I speak to you in private?" Paul asked. Jack nodded, and directed Paul towards the tea-room, where he knew Frank would ban everyone else until they re-emerged.

Paul explained what had happened after Jack had left Widgee. It felt good to come clean with him, and God knew, if _Paul_ felt good to come clean, then he couldn't imagine how Gabrielle must have felt to be hiding such a thing from him.

Gabrielle would have been four-six weeks pregnant and not know it when she had met Jack. She would have fallen pregnant in the last weeks of her relationship with Steve. When Steve had found out about it, he had refused to acknowledge that he could – and most likely, _was_ – the father, instead, calling her a slut and a whore who had slept around and gotten herself knocked up by some random guy. To make himself feel better, he had told everyone he knew this story. Steve had a bad reputation himself, but still, quite a few people believed him.

He had gone to see Gabrielle in a drunken state and attempted to beat her into a miscarriage. He had been the only doctor on when she had gone into premature labour, and when there had been complications he had done a caesarean . Out of spite or drunken negligence, he had left a horrible scar that would have any reputable surgeon calling for his resignation. After she had given birth, he had threatened her and the child should she ever name the child as his and, as the only doctor on, had filled out the father's name as 'Jack Quade'.

Word soon got around that Gabrielle's baby had been born prematurely and with neonatal conjunctivitis, both signs of mother-to-child Chlamydia. No point in trying to explain that Steve had given it to her. She had been too proud and dignified to refute his claims by painting _him_ as the jerk and besides, it was a country town with double standards.

Russel had soon heard of the rumours. Gabrielle was his eldest and his only daughter and it pained him to hear her spoken about like she was the local prostitute. In a fit of anger and shame, he had called her a slut and a whore and that there was no way in hell he would raise 'some city boy's kid'.

Gabrielle, proud as Lucifer, hadn't been about to let her father insult her again, and had taken the first position she could find that would pay her enough to keep her daughter in daycare. And then she had met Jack. And things had gotten too out of hand for her and it had been easier to let the best thing that had happen to her slip out of her life than admit to the shame she felt...

"I know it must be hard for you, to imagine why she would keep such a dumb thing from you – especially since she knew Laura isn't yours and was willing to say so – but you have to understand it from her perspective. Steve should have been there for her, should have taken responsibility... and instead he tried to kill her baby and threatened to harm them both if she said anything. If that's the treatment she got from someone who owed her loyalty and responsibility, why wouldn't she expect at least rejection from someone she had a week-long fling with?"

By this point, Jack was crying. Everything made sense now. His stubborn, proud Gabrielle wouldn't admit she needed help, wouldn't admit that taking care of a baby on her own was wearing her down, grinding down her health until was what most likely just a mild case of the flu and a concussion had her unconscious and delirious. His sensitive Gabrielle had been so deeply hurt, far deeper than he had realised, by everyone who should have been there for her – her childhood sweetheart, her dad – that she saw no reason to trust a fling. "Here," Paul said, offering him a tissue. His gut had told him Jack would understand; he hadn't realised Jack would be so moved that he would cry.

That could only be a good thing.

Jack stared intently at Laura. She was the most gorgeous little girl. She already had the makings of a blond. "Her grand-mother, who Gabby named her after, was a green-eyed blond," Paul said casually, as if reading Jack's mind. "One of the things Steve latched onto was that your sister is a green-eyed blond." No explanation was needed there.

"My mother, too," Jack said wryly. He hadn't kept his eyes off the girl. "Can I hold her?" he asked.

"Of course."

Jack picked her up. She was tiny. And heavier than he imagined her to be. His fantasies of his own daughter had been of a ghost, an image. But Laura's very heaviness was reassuring. He wanted to squeeze her, but knew better. "You're good with her," Paul said. But then, Laura only seemed to like those that Gabrielle embraced. She screamed at strangers in the park who tried to touch her. "She can't stand Maria."

"Who's Maria?" Jack asked. Paul explained that she was the baby-sitter/nanny that Gabrielle employed to look after Laura when the daycare centre closed. Jack wrinkled his nose at that. "Doesn't she know that there's a free crèche here that runs eight-six for staff?"

"She did, she just didn't want the people she worked with to know she had a child out of wedlock... and later, you," Paul explained.

Jack digested that. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like for her... but then again, in his own way, he could... to be exploited, violated and alone.

"Look, I need you to do me a favour," Paul said. "She doesn't want Russel to know where she is. Only Me, Julia and Brad do. If you take custody of her then Jules will be down on the weekend and we can take her off your hands."

"Huh?" Jack asked.

Paul explained. Even though they both knew Jack wasn't father, his name was on the birth certificate and as such, with Gabrielle unconscious, he had the strongest claim to Laura. If he didn't claim Laura, than Paul would be forced to get Russel involved. "Just claim her and give her over to me," Paul concluded.

"No," Jack said.

Paul was surprised by that. "You won't do this little thing to keep her from DOCS?" he asked.

"No, it's not that. Look, I don't know you. And as such, I don't trust you. I'll claim Laura... but I'll take care of her myself."

Paul just stared at him. He wasn't aware of Jack's devotion to children, so he didn't know it was his second nature to fall in love with them... and since he had fallen in love with one that he had a strong legal claim to – legitimate or not – well, he was going to make that claim. "You can't be serious."

Jack grinned at him, bounds of intelligence and years of education challenging Paul. "I believe I am her legal father," he said, emphasising the _legal_. "You want to challenge that... take it to court." They both knew it would take years to go through the courts, and until then, as the man named on her birth certificate as her father, than Jack had the second-strongest claim to her, only to Gabrielle.

* * *

"Jack, you cannot be serious about this."

Jack focused his aqua-grey eyes on Frank in a way that disarmed most people... but not Frank. "Serious about what?" he asked sweetly. "Claiming a baby that has me named as the father while her mother is unconscious? What would you rather I do? Leave her to DOCS?" They both knew what DOCS involved.

"Where's her dad?" Frank asked. They both knew he meant Gabrielle and Laura's.

"She doesn't want contact," Jack said, and they both knew he was referring to both Gabrielle and Laura.

"Can _you_ contact him?" Frank asked.

"Maybe," Jack said. He would only try to contact Russel Jaeger. Regardless of whether or not Russel had _intended_ to hurt Gabrielle, the fact was, he had. His heart broke for her every time he thought about it. He was all too familiar with what it felt to have a parent – or in his case, _step-_parent – call you a slut, and something told him that it had hurt her far more coming from an otherwise loving home than it had him coming from a step-mother who he had known from the get-go hated him. And if it were possible to contact Steve Taylor, Jack had no intention of doing it. Rotting in hell was too good for that man.

* * *

"Russel, my name's Jack Quade, I'm calling from Sydney about your daughter and grand-daughter," Jack said. It had been easy enough to locate Russel despite the fact Gabrielle had given a non-existent phone number; there weren't exactly a lot of Jaegers in the tiny town of Widgee, New South Wales.

The name sounded familiar, but Russel was too shocked to care. He deeply regretted the things he had said to his eldest child and only daughter, but it had been hard to hear the things that were being said about her, so hard, and he had lashed out. Gabrielle had left and left no contact details before he could calm down enough to apologise, and knowing his little girl the way he did, he knew it was likely that he might never hear from her again. It had only been for Brad Walker's intervention that Russel even knew that she was alive and OK. "How are they?" Russel asked, eager for news.

"I'm afraid Gabrielle's health isn't the best. She's been wearing herself out, trying to work fulltime and be a fulltime mum. At least, I hope that's all it is."

"Who's looking after Laura?"

"I am," Jack said.

And then it clicked with Russel why the name sounded familiar. Jack Quade was the man who had blown into town for a week and seduced his daughter. The thought of him laying a finger on Laura made him furious. "I'll leave straight away," he said. "What's your address?"

"It's been made very clear to me that Gabrielle doesn't want to see you," Jack said. "I'm just calling out of courtesy to let you know what's going on."

"This is my _daughter_ and _grand-daughter_," Russel objected. "You have no claim to them."

"Really? I have a birth certificate that says different," Jack challenged. Finding Laura's birth certificate hadn't been particularly hard and sure enough, he was named as the father. He wondered how anyone could be as much of an asshole as Steve, then thought of his own father. Some people had equally generous measures of deep entitlement and abject selfishness hardwired into their brains. If you could credit either of them with having a brain, that was.

"We both know she isn't yours," Russel blustered. Too late he had realised that Gabrielle had been telling the truth; that she had already been pregnant when she had met Jack, that before Jack Steve had been the only other man in her life and that _he_ had given her Chlamydia; that Jack had been incredibly conscientious about birth control and even if the timing _had _been questionable, there would have been no doubt as to who Laura's father was.

"Really? So nice of you to take up that particular cause _now_," Jack said sarcastically. "Pity it didn't save her from working herself to a shadow because she felt she had no-one else to support her." Jack hadn't meant to argue with the man – Paul had been truly convinced that Russel was sorry for the things he had said and done and was no doubt now worried sick – but Jack found it hard to care. The man only had himself to blame for believing town gossip over his own daughter.

"Please," Russel said. "I need to see them."

Jack could hear in the older man's voice that Russel was beside himself, and for a second, he wavered. Then he decided that Laura would be fine with him – he had organised time off with Vincent, and anyway, he had set about enrolling Laura in the free crèche that hospital staff could use – and if Gabrielle felt so strongly about not seeing her father, then he should respect that. "Right now Gabby needs rest and support. I don't see the point in potentially stressing her out. But I'll talk to her when she gets better. I just wanted you to know that she'll be OK. They both will be." _Because I intend to make sure she gets all the rest and support she needs_.

* * *

"So... explain it to me again," Bart said, because the whole thing sounded so ludicrous. "Jack knew Gabrielle from ages back and they have a kid?"

"Actually, he said he was named as the father," Charlotte said. Bart looked blank, not getting the difference. "All he said was that they did sleep together around the time she would have conceived and that his name is on the birth certificate."

Dan couldn't help adding what he knew. Gabrielle was his boss and he respected her and all, but really, this was too juicy _not_ to share. "Jack said she had just broken up with her ex," he said. He had enough respect for Gabrielle not to add that said ex had tried to rape her and ended up forcing her to leave town after he had trashed her reputation. "You think he knows perfectly well she's not his?"

Charlotte shrugged. "Sounds plausible," she said, especially in light of the fact that Jack had a damn good claim to her – legally, at least – and when the alternative was DOCS. Come to think, it sounded _very_ plausible. Jack adored children and wasn't likely to just stand by and let DOCS take Laura when he could do something about it.

"What I don't understand, though, is if Gabrielle doubted Jack was Laura's father, why would she put the name down? She seems to have more integrity than that," Bart said. It was the million dollar question.

* * *

"You know, if I had known you would be so good with kids, I would have gotten you a girlfriend ages ago," Rebecca said the next day. Jack had filled her in on everything – no details spared – and the two, or rather, _three_ of them, were having lunch in a popular cafe.

"There's only one girl I'm keen on, thankyouverymuch," Jack said. His eyes were sparkling, Rebecca noticed. _Good_. She knew that even when he and Gabrielle had been involved, he hadn't been happy with the arrangement and had been nagged by a feeling she was hiding something major from him. His guess had been a husband or incurable STD like HIV; that it had only been a daughter had been a massive weight off his mind. He adored children, and would be a great father. He seemed to have partially made up his mind that he _was_ Laura's father, and so long as Gabrielle approved, things couldn't get better.

"You're crazy about her," Rebecca noted.

"Gabrielle or Laura?" he asked.

"Both."

"Yeah," he admitted. "Things feel _so right_. To tell the truth, they felt right the night I met her. I wish I had convinced her to come back with me. I could have saved her so much grief... and myself, too," he added, thinking of his disastrous relationship with Deanna. Well, that was all over now.

A woman came over to their table. "She's so adorable," she said, admiring Laura. She looked directly at Rebecca. "She takes after you, you know."

"Thankyou," Rebecca said politely. They waited until the woman was out of earshot to crack up.

* * *

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Charlotte said to Gabrielle as she came out of her semi-delirious state of unconsciousness.

Gabrielle tried to gather her thoughts, but her mind felt like mud. She vaguely remembered falling, but after that – "What time is it?" she asked.

"Ten," Charlotte supplied. "On Friday," she added, knowing that would be Gabrielle's next question. For three days, Gabrielle had laboured under attack of several infections, all of which should have been no more threatening than a common cold, but because her immune system was so shot to hell. "You gave us quite a scare," Charlotte said. "You do know the hospital has a free crèche for staff? You didn't have to go working yourself into the grave being both mum and NUM. You can't do either job properly, and you were certainly no use to Laura with your body responding to a common cold like it was chronic pneumonia." While Charlotte didn't know the exact details, she did by now, as everyone in the hospital did, know that Gabrielle had a baby girl, six months old, who Jack was claiming as his... and in a really bizarre way, not _really_ claiming it, but still claiming it.

"Laura," Gabrielle muttered. Instantly, her thoughts came together. "Where's Laura?" she asked. If Laura had been taken to DOCS or worse, her father, she might never see her again –

"She's with Jack and Rebecca. The two of them are playing happy families. They think it's funny when someone thinks they're her parents. I think you'll have a fight on your hands if you ever try to take her away from him."

"Jack," Gabrielle said, remembering. Feeling so ashamed about her daughter, realising that she would be working with Jack, knowing she couldn't let anyone know that she had a baby in case he worked out that she might be his... she _knew_ Laura wasn't his daughter, but after the way Steve had treated her, she didn't know who she could trust. What if Jack rejected her just as viciously as Steve had? If Steve, who owed her so much loyalty and obligation, had sat in the pub night after night for weeks on end telling everyone who would listen that she was an STD-ridden slut, then what loyalty could she expect from a man she had spent a week with? She started to cry.

Charlotte, not understanding that she was crying over everything unfair in her life, patted her shoulder. "It's OK," she said. "He understands. He must understand a hell of a lot more than I do, because he's so worried about you. I think he loves you."

"I lied to him."

"He gets that for whatever reason you did it, you had a good reason for it. You should have seen him these last few days. Without us being able to contact your dad, he's staked his claim as your next of kin through Laura and has been making sure you only get the best of care. He's been in every day. See?" she asked, gesturing to the small mountain of flowers and pink plush toys. "And that brings me to something I can't work out. Jack's not Laura's father, is he?" she asked. Gabrielle shook her head. "And he knows it, doesn't he?" Gabrielle nodded. "He insisted on claiming Laura and taking care of her. Said DOCS would take her over his dead body. He must be crazy about you to do that."

Gabrielle cried harder over that. "I want to see them," she sobbed through her tears.

"I'll call him," Charlotte said. "But in the meantime, I want you to rest. Jack will kill me if he thinks I've been letting you get stressed out. Your daughter is in safe hands. There's no-one I would trust more with a baby than Jack."

A few hours later, Gabrielle woke to see Jack feeding Laura. "The nurse in paediatrics had a go at me for not mixing the formula right," he admitted sheepishly. "And here was me thinking I was doing quite well for a dad of about two hours."

"Jack," she said, moved by the way Jack was handling Laura with remarkable ease given the fact he hadn't spent more than a few minutes at a time with a baby until a few days ago. "You don't owe us anything."

"She's my daughter," he said simply. "I owe her _everything_."

"She's not – " Gabrielle started to say, but Jack cut her off with a look that spoke a thousand words. In the space of three days, he had fallen for Laura as deeply as he had fallen for Gabrielle, and no-one, not even Gabrielle herself, was going to take either away from him.

"She's my daughter," he repeated, and instantly she understood what he meant. He knew perfectly well that Laura wasn't his biologically. He didn't care. He loved them both too much to care.

"Jack..." she said again.

Laura was finished feeding, so he placed her briefly in Gabrielle's arms, aware that she was too weak to hold something so fragile on her own for long. "I've spoken to your dad," he said. She looked ready to protest and he explained. "I thought it was right that he knew. He wanted to come up, but I told him no. And if he couldn't find you, then he can't find me, I'm not even on the electoral role." Most people stopped at having an unlisted number when it came to not wanting to be located; he had taken himself off the electoral role, scared that a certain someone from his past would be able to track him down. "You can decide what you want to do when you're better. And that's another thing. You were hiding how sick you were from me. Do you know how much worse it would have been? You could have lapsed into a coma, even _died_... you stupid stubborn girl, why couldn't you just admit you needed help?" The only help she had had was Maria, who Jack had let go, to pick up Laura from daycare and stay with her until Gabrielle got home._ Now_ that phone call made sense. It had been Maria calling, pissed off at having to stay back... not a lover or husband. Jack felt guilty about all the times he had doubted her... but she hadn't exactly made it easy for him.

Gabrielle turned her head so she was facing away from him. "You don't understand what it's like to be afraid of someone you used to love, so afraid that you can't trust anyone," she said.

"Gabrielle, look at me," Jack directed. She stubbornly kept her face away from him, and he directed her again, this time stronger, so something compelled her to face him. "What I'm about to tell you stays between us, OK? I never told anyone except my step-mother and she didn't believe me." Gabrielle nodded. "I was sexually abused for two years when I was a teenager. He was more of a father-figure to me than my actual father... until the day he raped me and told my step-mother he'd caught me stealing so she would make me go back to make up for it. He got bored of me and found someone younger and less used when I was fifteen. You think I don't know about being afraid of someone? I'm not on the electoral roll so he can't find me. I know what it's like to idolise someone and have them use you up and leave you with nothing for yourself. So let me be there for you. Let me take care of you. You need it. You're no good to this hospital as a nurse and you're certainly no good to Laura as a mum. I know you're proud and I love you for it, but so many people depend on you and you can't be there for them if you won't let me be there for you. Really, you owe it to all the people that rely on you," he finished, a trifle smugly.

She wanted him to repeat that he loved her, but was pretty sure he meant it in an offhand fashion – as in _you got me food on the way home, I totally love you_ - and she didn't care to be rejected again. "OK," she said.

"Now, you have to concentrate on getting better," he ordered. "I'm a surgeon, and it's not good for business to have a surgeon's partner looking like she's ready to keel over."

* * *

"Home, sweet home," Jack said. "I was sleeping in your bed while you were sick but I'll move into one of the spare bedrooms if you want." Gabrielle had kept Laura in a cot in her bedroom and Jack had seen no sense in moving things around until Gabrielle got back to decide what to do.

"Jack, it's fine. I'd like you to stay with me anyway."

"You sure? I don't want to push you. I'll move back in with Dan if you want," he offered.

"I'd like you to stay here. With me. If you don't mind," she said shyly. For the past four days, until Frank decided she was OK to go home, Jack had been at her side constantly. He had made sure Laura was OK in daycare and come to sit by her, when he wasn't bringing Laura to be by her side. He smuggled in real food, not hospital crap, and fussed over her nonstop. She had never felt so cherished in her life.

More importantly, it soon became apparent that he had fallen deeply for Laura in the space of a few days, and it did her heart – and body – the world of good to know that Laura would have a father figure she could truly look up to. Something told her that whatever happened between her and Jack down the road, he would always be there for Laura, and knowing that made it so much easier to focus on getting better. With Jack at her side she felt less stressed and more focused on what needed to be done. She felt strong and capable whereas only a week ago she had been at her wit's end as to how she was supposed to juggle being a single mother, working fulltime and hiding Laura from Jack.

Unconsciously, she leaned into him and he wrapped his arm around her a little tighter. "Thanks," she said. "For everything. I didn't know I could feel so calm."

"You're welcome." Jack made it sound like _she_ was doing _him_ a favour.

They had dinner and put Laura to sleep before going to bed themselves. Neither was sure exactly where they were supposed to go from here. They had an understanding that once she was better, they would resume their relationship in every sense of the word, but when exactly was that point?

He stroked her hair so it was away from her face and drank her in lovingly. A week's rest had done her the world of good, and so would the extra two weeks Frank was making her take off – so long as he could _make_ her rest, Jack thought. Six months of not having time to relax or the ability to wind down or the time or energy to cook herself decent nutritious meals had ground done her health and immune system so the girl who had bragged she could hall twenty-five kilos worth of stuff like it was a loaf of bread and been running around all day between sunrise and sunset barely had the energy to get up each morning. It floored Jack how someone could be so careless with their health... but he was beginning to understand how stubborn and proud she was, and on top of that, to feel she had no-one to support her, not even her family...

What was meant to be a quick peck soon turned into a deep, passionate kiss. He had been unable to stop thinking about her, and it had been two weeks since they had been together. He felt his passion begin to stir immediately and he climbed on top of her. "So help me God, if you don't tell me the second you're not up to this, when I find out – and I promise that I'll find out – I really will move back in with Dan."

"Really?" she asked, her eyes glittering at the thought he cared so much about her that he would abstain from sex for her health – let alone that he would move out if she tried to lie to him or chip at his resistance.

"Really," he said, not sure why she was smiling at him like that. Did she really think her health was less important to him than getting laid?

They started to make out, and he took his time slowly undoing the buttons on her shirt, kissing the exposed flesh as he went. He sent her a silent message that she didn't want her to do anything but passively enjoy it, and she seemed to get it, not doing much beyond sliding her hands up under his shirt and running them up and down his back.

She tensed up slightly when he got halfway down her shirt. She wasn't quite used to the thought that Jack truly didn't care about her scar. "It's OK," he said softly. "It's not nearly as bad as you think it is." But then he suspected that a large part of it was her association with her pregnancy and painful labour and not the scar itself. He was pushing her to see a counsellor who specialised in post-natal depression.

Laura gurgled in her cot, which distracted Jack slightly. "I'm going to put her in the other room," he said. There was something that felt a little wrong about doing anything in front of her, like he was exposing her too early. She didn't know what was going on, of course, but you never knew just how much a child picked up to... He got up, retrieved the baby monitor and put it to the side of the cot and started to wheel it out of the main bedroom.

"Jack," Gabrielle called after him. He stopped and looked at her. "Do you, uh... do you have condoms?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?" he asked. He frowned slightly when he realised why for himself and tried not to resent her for not trusting him. He took Laura into the spare room, monitor attached, and came back to the bedroom with condoms. "Now, where we were?" he asked.

Afterwards, she lay in his arms. "Sorry," she murmured.

"What for?" He was over the condom thing by now. Being back in Gabrielle's arms had made him feel a lot better about a lot of things.

"For making you use a condom. I know in my head I can trust you, but – "

"What you went through makes you petrified of becoming pregnant again?" Jack asked. Gabrielle nodded a little sheepishly. She, who was so collected and logical, knew that what she had gone through could mostly be chalked up to second-rate services and a vengeful ex. If she were to fall pregnant now, in Sydney, with world-class medical care available and, more importantly, a partner who was crazy about kids, it would be a lot easier... maybe even enjoyable. But she couldn't get beyond the misery she had endured since finding out that she was pregnant. "I get it," he said quietly. "It took me a long time to trust people after what happened to me," he said.

Suddenly she realised that, for all she had been through the past year, Jack had been sexually abused for two years and had probably struggled to deal with it ever since. "How did you?" she asked.

"Mostly learning to engage my senses. Everytime someone touched me, I'd think of _him_. I'm still incredibly homophobic, think I always will be. But I learnt to listen and taste and smell so I knew with more then my brain – my heart and gut, I guess – that it wasn't him. Look, can I ask you something?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Would you have an abortion? If you fell pregnant, say... tomorrow? Hypothetically, I mean."

She squirmed. "I don't know," she admitted. The idea of going through all that again...

"Then I don't care if I have to use condoms."

"Jack? You're seriously anti-abortion? You?" she asked incredulously. Jack, who had such loathing of men who abused women, being pro-life?

"You try growing up with a step-mother who almost every day called you a stupid slut just like your mother and told you that everyone would have been much better off if she'd had an abortion, see how strongly _you_ believe pro-choice after _that_," Jack said. "Sorry, didn't mean to be a downer," he apologised. "I get that it's the woman's choice and I approve of it in the abstract... but when it came to my own kid... I'd much rather use condoms until you know you could have a kid if you fell pregnant tomorrow."

Gabrielle searched her memory and came up blank trying to recall a man who could take responsibility for his actions and ethical choices like that, and felt all the more worse for having doubted that she could trust him. The thought made her cuddle closer into him.

"You know I can get this fixed if you want," he said, tracing her scar idly. "I mean, the best surgeon in the world couldn't make it go away, but it can be fixed to be a lot more... discreet," he settled on, having searched for a variation on 'less ugly'.

"I thought you were a trauma surgeon," she said.

"I didn't mean me personally. God no, I'm not arrogant enough to believe I could do a better job than a cosmetic surgeon. I meant I can think of several terrific cosmetic surgeons."

"I have a mortgage and a baby, Jack, I can't afford cosmetic surgery, and last I checked, Medicare doesn't pay for it," Gabrielle reminded him quietly, wanting him to say again that he didn't care about it.

"And I can think of at least three terrific cosmetic surgeons who would do it pro-bono. I get that Steve isn't a surgeon, but... that kind of work is an embarrassment to the surgical community. Hell, to the medical community. _Bart_ could do a better job. I mean, it's only if it matters that much to you, 'cos it doesn't mean anything to me."

"How can it really not mean anything to you Jack?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Don't know, honestly. It wouldn't mean anything to me if it really _was_ a butchered appendix job, and this way I get Laura, so..." he shrugged again as if to say that he considered a nasty scar to be a bargain trade for an adorable daughter. She was so overwhelmed that she started to cry in his arms.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me," she sobbed. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."

"I could say the same right back," he replied.


	5. Chapter 5

"You'd better do better than this," Jack told Charlotte a few months later as she struggled to keep up with him and a Golden Retriever puppy named Leo. Pushing Laura's stroller was much easier that trying to keep pace with an energetic puppy, something Jack appeared to be doing with ease. Charlotte scowled at him. She had no idea how he did it. She was half-convinced that Jack became more energetic with each extra demand on his energy. _No-one_ should be able to juggle a surgical career, parenthood and a dog which as much ease as Jack seemed to manage it. But then, he was part of a couple. It had to be so much easier when you were part of a couple. She had witnessed first-hand how Gabrielle's health had flourished with Jack to help both in running the house and taking care of Laura. She, meanwhile –

"What's up?" Jack asked. He noticed Charlotte seemed despondent and sat down on a bench. He let Leo off his leash to run around inspecting everything.

She sat down next to him. "Nothing."

"Is it about Spence?" he asked. She smiled guiltily. "You worried that he won't come back from Somalia?"

"A little," she admitted.

"The guy's a fool, then, and bub will be better off with no father than a fool for one," Jack said decisively. "Look at Gabby."

"Yeah, look at her. Defacto who adores her, father-figure who carries on like he's spawned at _least_ a Marie Curie, adorable dog who guards both of them better than most what passes for security at the hospital. _Damn_ I wish that I was her." Charlotte's tone was bitter and a little sarcastic. Gabrielle had landed a real peach of both partner and father, for Jack adored both 'his girls' equally and had taken to fatherhood like a duck to water. And just to make every working woman that little bit more jealous, Rebecca, knowing full well that she had nothing to do with Laura biologically, had taken to aunthood as well as Jack had taken to fatherhood. Norman Rockwell himself couldn't have painted a more disgustingly saccharine picture of family had he tried. Meanwhile, she, Charlotte, had only a man who was more of an on-and-off fling – Spence had made it clear that Somalia was his base of operations and he had no interest in permanently moving back to Australia anytime soon – as _her_ man.

"You know what I mean. Steve was... I only met the guy briefly, but he's not someone you want in a child's life. Gabrielle reinvented the term _stubborn pride_ but she did have a point about not wanting anything from Steve. Look, I don't know much about families but I do know that my father was an asshole and that I would have loved to have had someone like me or Vincent in my life. It's not the end of the world that Spence isn't here. You still have loads of people who will support you. Including me."

Charlotte laid her head on Jack's shoulder. That was very comforting to know.

* * *

"You look well," Julia Croft commented over tea while Jack, Laura, Charlotte and Leo were at the park. She had come up to Sydney for a few days, and when Gabrielle had confided in her childhood friend that Jack was taking the afternoon to catch up with a good friend, Julia jumped on the chance to see Gabrielle alone. Not that she wasn't totally keen to see Jack – she was – but she really wanted to catch up with Gabrielle one-on-one first.

"I am well," Gabrielle said. Three months of living with Jack, who, she was convinced, was already half-convinced himself that Laura was his. Sometimes something reminded her of that fact that Jack was legally, if not biologically, Laura's father, and she would find herself laughing, knowing that there was no way in hell Jack would let her use the biological excuse to deprive him of seeing Laura should they break up.

Not that she had any intention of breaking up with him. He was – he was –

"That good, huh?" Julia asked with a smile she had perfected from watching Kim Cattral on _Sex and the City_.

"He loves Laura," Gabrielle said, feeling a touch giddy. "And more than that... he loves _me_." She hugged herself. "I never thought there were men out there who had so much love to give."

"So that would explain why you're looking so well," Julia commented dryly.

Gabrielle grinned at that. "Actually... he makes me get out each day and get exercise. He wouldn't touch me sexually for two months because he said it wasn't natural for a woman of my height to weigh under seventy-five kilos."

"Go Jack," Julia said. He was right. Gabrielle was a hundred and eighty centimetres, it _wasn't_ right for someone of her height to weigh less than seventy-five kilos. "Did he really forgo sex over it?"

Gabrielle looked off in the distance, thinking about Steve's infidelity. She had once thought that she would never trust a man again, but Jack... "Yeah, he did," she said, and in doing so, she had confirmed her own thoughts; that Jack loved her, was faithful to her, faithful enough to be celibate while he waited for her body weight to creep up to something presentable. "I never thought I could trust someone like I trust him," she admitted.

"Good," Julia said approvingly. "It's about time you had someone who treated you right. Not all men are assholes."

The two women whiled away another hour before they heard the sound of a car coming up the drive. Jack went to the side gate to let Leo into the backyard, then entered with Laura through the front door. "I think I exhausted him for the day," Jack said proudly.

"I warned you labs need a lot of exercise," Gabrielle teased.

"Leo makes a good guard dog and he's wonderful with Laura," Jack countered, both of which were true. He looked directly at the woman Gabrielle had over. "You must be Julia," he said. "I'm Jack." She took note of the fact that he knelt to kiss Gabrielle on the mouth in a way that demonstrated he was deeply affectionate. Affection had never been Steve's forte – few things had been, other than drinking and treating Gabrielle badly – and the girl was starved for it.

"Pleased to meet you," Julia said. "Which one of you named your dog after Leonardo DiCaprio?"

"Who?" Jack asked, not for the first time.

"Jack doesn't know a thing about popular culture," Gabrielle said. "He named him after some German writer."

"Russian," Jack corrected.

"Cultural snob," she teased.

"Philistine," he teased back. He headed for the kitchen. "Are you staying for dinner, Julia?" he asked. " It's Spicy pork tenderloins with sweet potato mash and rosemary jus."

"What?" Julia asked. She understood those words individually, but as a _dish_?

"Meat and potatoes," Gabrielle offered with a laugh. "Told you he was a cultural snob." She looked at him lovingly and it was obvious to Julia that their playful squabbling was meant in fun. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Nope. You just sit there and enjoy yourself and I'll make dinner."

"But – "

"Remember when you wouldn't let me do anything when Bec came over? Same thing. Sit down and enjoy yourself."

So Julia and Gabrielle chatted while Jack prepared dinner in the background. Julia cooed over Laura. Now nine months old, it was obvious that she was going to inherit her grandmother's looks – and her mother's, except for the green eyes. "I think Jack would have _willed_ her into being a green-eyed blond if she hadn't been," Gabrielle said. "Rebecca, too."

"Who's Rebecca?"

"His sister." With a laugh, Gabrielle recalled the time Rebecca had showed up at the hospital crèche wanting to see Laura, except the crèche staff weren't authorised to give Laura to anyone but Jack or Gabrielle, and to exacerbate the problem, Jack and Rebecca looked nothing alike except for the same chameleon aqua-grey eyes or had the same name, so to the crèche staff, Rebecca could very well have been some random person from the street trying to snatch a baby. Rebecca had taken to this with all the humility and good humour of an eighteen-year-old, and if it wasn't for Bart coming by from pure luck and verifying that yes, she really was the girl's aunt, the staff would have called the police. Gabrielle retold the story with such humour that both women were laughing at the end of it.

"Does she know?" Julia asked. There was no need to spell out what she meant.

"Yeah. I don't know how much of it is that she's like Jack and she fallen hard for Laura that she thinks of herself as her aunt, and how much of it is that she's doing it for Jack's sake, but..." Gabrielle trailed off her words. They were both the most generous, loyal people she had ever met. Apart from Julia, Paul and Brad. She knew she was lucky to have them in her life – and in such a way.

Jack served dinner, and the three of them tucked in. Julia regaled Jack with stories of growing up with Gabrielle. It amused her when Jack was so hesitant about having Julia handle Laura. "She's a teacher, Jack," Gabrielle reminded him. "She handles other people's children all the time."

"Other people's children are not my daughter," Jack grumbled, but he allowed Julia to continue playing with Laura.

Julia was thoroughly impressed with Jack. Either he was the world's greatest actor, or... he genuinely loved both Gabrielle and Laura. And something told Julia that even Lawrence Olivier was not such an actor. "Let me get a photo," she begged at the end of the night, pulling out her camera. "Your dad keeps begging for one," she added to Gabrielle.

Gabrielle stiffened, remembering, always, the things her father had said to her after he had found out that she was pregnant. "No."

"Please?" Julia asked. "He asks about you all the time. He just wants to know that you're safe and happy. Paul and I tell him that, but a photo would mean the world to him."

"I don't see that it would do any harm," Jack said softly. He brought Laura into Gabrielle's arms and sat slightly behind her. Julia hadn't intended for Jack to be in the picture, but now that he was... hopefully the obvious devotion he had towards both of 'his girls' would show in the photo. And having Jack's arm's around her seemed to relax Gabrielle a bit more and make her accept the idea of having photo's taken to give to her father. _So Jack made her feel at ease_. Julia had already realised that, but actually seeing the way he could make her feel more at ease was another thing entirely.

"Say cheese," she said.

* * *

"Who let Ned Quade in the ward?" Charlotte asked irritably when she saw the man who had such little shame that he would hit on her while she was carrying his son's child – his _grandchild_. She had seen it as a silver lining of her miscarriage that she would never have to see the man again. At least she had thought so.

"That would be me," Bart said, with as much bravado as he could muster given that Charlotte was clearly pissed. "Why, did I do something wrong?"

"No," Charlotte said through gritted teeth. Bart wasn't to know that Jack didn't get along with his father and that if Ned was here, it could only mean trouble. Resolutely, she made a beeline for him. "I'm Charlotte," she said in the most pleasant voice she could manage. "We've met before."

"Where's my son?" Ned demanded. "And my granddaughter?"

Ah, so _that_ was what it was about. Ned had somehow found out about Laura. Well, hopefully informing him that Laura wasn't a Quade in any biological sense of the word would make Ned turn around and go back to the rock that he had crawled out from under. "Look, you need to know – " she started.

Ned waved her away. He had disliked her on sight. If Jack was going to knock someone up, he should have had the good sense to do it with someone younger, prettier, and hopefully that he was married to. When Jack had flatly told him six months later that Charlotte had miscarried, he had been relieved. He wanted legitimate grandsons to carry on his name, not illegitimate granddaughters. When he had run into that pretty teenager that was Jack's sister from that _barmaid_ Carla, baby strapped into her shopping trolley, and had found out that she was her niece, Jack's daughter... Ned had been fuming that he hadn't been informed, and was determined to get the details out of his son.

In the office Gabrielle shared with Frank, with Jack feeding Laura while Gabrielle had her own lunch. Whenever they were both free for her feeding time they liberated Laura from her crèche for a snatch of family time. With remarkable dexterity Jack was holding Laura and her bottle and keeping an eye on both her and the book he was reading aloud from. Not for his daughter were the Spot or Mr. Men and Little Miss books that _most_ parents read to their children. "Mrs. Medlock look pleased," he read from the book. "She was relieved to hear that she need not look after Mary much. She had felt her a tiresome charge, and had, indeed, seen as little as she dared. In addition to this, she was fond of Martha's mother. Page," he directed Gabrielle when he got to the end of the page. Gabrielle turned the page, far more enthralled with the story that Laura was. Her own mother had never been much of a reader and as such, she wasn't too familiar with children's classics. But Jack was, and listening to him read was far more enjoyable than reading the book herself, especially since he had a knack with the different accents.

Ned came barging in the door, startling both of them. "I hear you have a daughter," he said, looking at Laura and then Gabrielle. _Plain thing_, Ned thought, although he'd always been partial to blonds. Hopefully, Laura would take after Rebecca. Now, _there_ was an attractive woman.

Laura was finished feeding, so Jack handed her to Gabrielle. "Take her into the sun-room, I'll be with you in a minute," he said. His voice was soft, but it was a command and Gabrielle obeyed him. Jack turned to his father. "What do you want?" he asked guardedly. If it was money he was after again – and Ned seemed to think that he had encouraged and funded Jack's education to the nth degree and was now entitled to a slice of his earnings – then Jack would happily write him a cheque to make him go away. He remembered clearer then ever what a mean, neglectful drunk Ned was most of the time, and he didn't want him having anything to do with Laura.

"I'd like some consideration when you make me a grandfather," Ned said. "Why didn't you tell me you knocked someone up? You did last time. And at least that one was attractive, for an old broad. Plain thing, isn't she?"

_Old broad?_ Charlotte was younger than Ned. By a fair bit. But it was a typical Ned Quade comment, who didn't like his women younger than thirty, as Rebecca had found out, much to her distress. "I didn't," Jack said. "Get her pregnant, I mean."

"Course you did. I looked up her birth certificate."

Jack had forgotten that he could take himself off the electoral role and get an unlisted number, but he couldn't take a birth certificate out of circulation. He couldn't help but grinned at that. He should know, his step-mother had tried to do that with _his_. "Oh, that. Her ex-boyfriend did that. Wouldn't take responsibility for her." _Sounds like someone I know_, Jack thought. It had taken his father a long time to recognise him as his son, and even then, there had been an obvious distinction in the way he treated Jack and the way he treated his two older sons.

Ned stared at Jack. To take responsibility for something so big that you were free to wash your hands of it was completely beyond his comprehension. "Why would you do that?" he asked, dumbfounded. For someone as bright as Jack was, he could be really dumb sometimes.

Jack shrugged. He knew he could never make his father understand, but at least now he would lose interest in Laura. He was only really interested in having a legitimate grandson to carry on the Quade name; a granddaughter born out of wedlock who wasn't biologically a Quade was of no value to him. "I care about them both a great deal," he said.

Ned, who had never selflessly cared for anyone that much in his life, was flummoxed. And then angry that this brat was going around with _his_ name. "I hope you're not planning on giving her _my_ name," he said, as if the Quade family was a long line of heroes and legends and the name was not to be given to the unworthy.

"_My_ name, dad," Jack reminded him. "Remember, the one Stella _insisted_ that I take? And if it makes you feel better, no, I'm not. Gabrielle doesn't feel right about it."

"Well, I hope she's not expecting that _bastard_ to be named in my will, either," Ned blustered.

Because the combined incomes of a surgeon and nursing manager was so slight that they needed money from a retired labourer. Jack bit his tongue to keep reminding his father that he was constantly coming to him for money. "We'll manage," Jack said dryly. "Is there anything else?"

"Well, now that you mention it, the bills are a bit high this month, and since you seem to have the spare cash to take care of an infant..."

Jack sighed. He suspected seeing Laura had been his secondary concern. The same human decency that had seen him take responsibility for Laura as if she really _was_ his couldn't turn his father down. The man _had_ taken him in when his mother had abandoned him. Although sometimes he thought he would have been better being adopted out. God knew, adoptive parents had to meet _much_ higher standards of human decency than many biological parents, Ned Quade included, did. "How much?" he asked.

He wrote Ned a cheque and sent him on his way before making his way to the sun room where Gabrielle was with Laura. His mood immediately perked up to see them. "Sorry about that," he said, hoping Gabrielle hadn't heard Ned's comment about her being plain. "You understand better now why having biological children isn't that big a deal to me? I don't exactly have the best genes to pass on."

"He's really not that bad, is he?" Gabrielle asked.

"Only about a rung above Steve on the responsible parent ladder," Jack said in all seriousness. "At least he _eventually_ recognised me as his son."

Gabrielle touched his face affectionately. "The more I learn about you, the more I can't believe you turned out the way you did."

He leaned in to kiss her. It had been intended as a quick peck but with Gabrielle, he always found it hard to restrain himself and before long, they were locked in a passionate embrace. They were interrupted by Bart, who coughed indiscreetly. "Sorry," Jack said offhandedly. "He's just jealous," he whispered to Gabrielle when Bart was gone. "I wonder if he's still got a crush on Ricki."

* * *

He took her with a gentleness that he hadn't realised he possessed before he met her. It wasn't like that all the time, of course. Sometimes he was so hot for her that it was all he could do to keep his hands off her at work. But tonight – something about his father's appearance had reminded him, with a great deal of taste, of how much he loathed brutish, selfish men like Steve and his father. So he took her as gently as he knew how, savouring every touch, every caress, every second that he was inside her. He could feel her wrapped around him, trembling, and it was the greatest turn-on he had ever known.

He reluctantly withdrew when they were finishing, wishing he didn't have to worry about the condom, wishing she wasn't so paranoid about it. He got _why_ she was paranoid, even curbed much of his resentment that she still trusted him so little because he knew that her paranoia came from being so badly abused that you didn't trust your own instincts anymore. Lord, he knew plenty about _that_. But it didn't stop him from hating having to use a condom every single time.

"I was thinking," Jack said. His father's appearance had got him thinking about family, or lack thereof. Both their mothers were dead, and Jack had no desire to have anything to do with his father and half-brothers beyond the occasional duty cheque, and Ned and his brothers seemed very comfortable with this arrangement. "You really should get in touch with your father."

He felt her stiffen in his arms. He knew it was a sore point for her and he also knew what it felt like to be called a slut by someone who was _supposed_ to be a parent... but he also knew from talking to Russel that the man was truly sorry for driving Gabrielle away, and that the single biggest regret in his life was not having his daughter and granddaughter in it. "No," Gabrielle said.

"He's sorry, Gabs," Jack said. "I've never known anyone to be more contrite. He really wants to make amends. And I think it's important for Laura to have a grandfather in her life. Unless you want me to try and make nice with _my_ dad?" he asked drily. He doubted it was possibly, and even if it was, there was no way Ned would recognise Laura as his granddaughter. He'd more likely take both Jack and Gabrielle to court if they tried to change Laura's name to Quade."It's important to have family," he told her.

"You did alright," Gabrielle retorted, although she couldn't help but remember all the happy times she had had with her family. She knew her father's comments had been said in the heat of the moment, that he had taken as much as he could of hearing his daughter spoken about as the town tramp and had lashed out. But knowing didn't make forgiving any easier.

"Yeah, I did alright... but you should have seen me when I was sixteen. Hell, you should have seen me when I was _six_. Maybe I'm stronger for it and maybe I've cobbled together a group of close friends 'cos they were the only family I was ever going to have, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I am quite happy for my daughter to grow up not as strong as me," Jack said.

"You can't protect her from everything, you'll only make her weak," Gabrielle pointed out.

"I know that, and that's not what I'm talking about, and _you_ know that. Do you really want Laura to go without something as awesome as a grandfather who loves her 'cos he said something in the heat of the moment and you were too proud to let him make it up to you?"

Gabrielle was silent for a long time, which Jack knew to be a good thing. When he tried to point out the reasonability of something to her proud, stubborn soul, the longer she thought about it, the deeper his words had sunk in. "I don't want him here," she said finally. "I don't want him in my house. I want to be able to go to _him_ at my convenience. And not to Widgee, Either. He can come here. On my turf."

Jack grinned. "Babe, I'm a Sydney boy through and through. _Tour guides_ don't know this city as well as me. If you want, I can make him feel like so much of a bumbling country hick that we can name our terms and he'll be insanely grateful."

* * *

"Russell, it's me, Jack," he said into the phone the next day. Russell recognised Jack's voice immediately; they spoke at least once a week. Jack had increasingly found himself feeling sorry for Russel. He had said something awful, but he hadn't meant it and he had paid dearly for his words. He was eager for any scrap of information about Gabrielle and especially Laura, and Jack found himself repeating the most inane anecdotes that only a devoted father – or desperate grandfather – would find interesting. "Gabrielle's agreed to meet you. And let you meet Laura."

Russel gave an audible sigh of relief. "Thankgod," he said. "Her room's just as she left it and we have a spare room we can use as a nursery." He didn't add that since Gabrielle had left almost a year ago, he had painstakingly created a series of exquisite baby furniture and kitted out the nursery with more effort and eye for detail then most expecting mothers put in, always hoping that one day Gabrielle and Laura would return to put it to use. "Will you be coming?"

"No," Jack said. Russel tried not to sound too relieved. Julia had said Jack was so good for Gabrielle, treated her like a princess and was the most amazing father you ever met, especially when you took into account that his place in Laura's life was technically as her mother's boyfriend. But he wanted to see his daughter and grand-daughter on their own. He would happily welcome Jack into the family at a later date. "We're not coming down at all. _You_ are coming to Sydney. I'll arrange for you to stay in a hotel – Ben, too, if he wants to come – you just have to let me know so I can make a booking."

"She's my daughter," Russel complained weakly. "She belongs with her family."

"Laura and I are her family," Jack countered. "You hurt her, Russel. I know you didn't mean to, but you did. If you want to see them, you'll come to Sydney. And not without me."

"But – "

"That's my offer," Jack cut him off. "It's taken me three months to get her to agree to _that_ and I will not put her in a position where she feels vulnerable. Too many men have made her cry, Russel. No-one else will on my watch... and that includes you."

Russel realised that Jack was serious, and would think nothing of hanging up on him and not lift a finger to aid in his reconciliation with Gabrielle and Laura with at least _another_ three months. She definitely had a champion in Jack... but weather he was a good of bad influence on her waited to be seen. Julia raved about him, but Russel couldn't just forget the fact that he had blown into town for a few days and helped wreck his daughter's life. Not that any of that was relevant right now. Jack held the cards and Russel had no choice but to agree to anything he wanted. "OK, fine," he said. He mentally went over everything that needed to be done on the farm, and decided it was nothing that he couldn't leave for the live-in couple that served as housekeeper and maintenance man to supervise. "We can be there by Tuesday." He said 'we' because although Ben never talked about Gabrielle – it would go against the Jaeger pride to admin that he actually missed his big sister, or that he was sorry for his own words and actions that had made Gabrielle think she couldn't go to them for support – Russel knew that he was just as eager to see her again as he was.

* * *

"I don't think I want to do this anymore." Actually, Gabrielle wasn't sure she had _ever_ wanted to do this... but Jack's words about Laura needing her grandfather had guilted her into allowing Jack to arrange a meeting between them. At least Jack promised to be by her side every step of the way.

"You'll be fine. I'm here, remember?" Jack had agreed to meet Russel in the restaurant section of the hotel he had arranged for him and Ben to stay at. Russel was already there, and he stood up when he saw the three of them enter.

"Hi," he said nervously. He wanted to hug Gabrielle but she had deliberately positioned herself in front of Laura's stroller and made no effort to move away. Instead, Russel concentrated on the baby. "Hey, there," he said, feeling slightly more at ease. So Laura would have green eyes, just like his late wife. There was something soothing about that knowledge. "I'm your grandpa." He looked at Gabrielle again. "You're looking well," he said. Not quite as physically fit as she had been when living on the farm, but she probably didn't have much opportunity to haul around things that weighed in excess of half her body weight. And she looked paler, which was probably because she wouldn't have been getting outside as much. But despite those things, she looked well, better, in fact, then she had in the past. She had a glow about her that Russel hadn't seen in a long time... since before her mother had died, really. Julia had said Jack was amazing for her. Steve had certainly never made her glow like that.

Gabrielle shrugged. "Jack makes me get out a lot."

Russel looked at Jack. He was certainly attractive, little wonder Gabrielle had been attracted to him. And he was physically nothing like Steve. But more than that - it was little things, like the way Jack's arm was draped casually around her waist, yet with an odd intensity. Russel got the distinct impression that he was very protective of Gabrielle – and of Laura. "Why don't we sit down," he suggested.

Gabrielle went to the bar and came back with drinks – a beer for her dad, lemonade for Jack and a double vodka and lemonade for herself, which she downed quickly. She needed the liquid courage. "Jack's driving," she said irritably when she felt her father's judgement look upon her.

Already, Russel felt like he was on shaky ground. He wished more than ever that Gabrielle had agreed to come down to the farm; he would have felt far more at ease on his own turf. Which was precisely why Jack had insisted that he and Ben come up to Sydney. "I'm sorry," he said, apologising for so many things with those two words. "I didn't mean to judge you."

"Really?" Gabrielle asked sarcastically. She didn't drink much, and the vodka was starting to affect her, bringing all her resentments to the fore. The last three months had been the happiest she could remember since before her mother had died, but that didn't mean she would forget anytime soon the nightmare of her pregnancy and the first six month's of Laura's life before Jack had stepped up to the plate.

"Look, a lot of people realise now that they were in the wrong. The hospital would give anything to have you back. Steve and Ashley won't bother you – no-one knows where they are." And a lot of people shared Paul's sentiment that their HIV-ridden bodies could rot in the Murray-Darling for all he cared. "Your room's just as you left it and so many people miss you badly... including me."

"Of course I'll come back," Gabrielle said with such obvious sarcasm that Russel knew better than to take her words at face value. "Just as soon as I find a job at a hospital as important as All Saints and a father as wonderful as Jack. God, what makes you – or anyone, for that matter – think I'd ever want to go back to that – to that one-horse town full of judgemental losers?"

"Gabrielle!" Jack said, shocked at her snooty dismissal of the town she had once refused to leave when Jack had begged her to come to Sydney with him.

But Gabrielle wasn't about to forget everything she had gone through at the hands of those 'judgemental losers' – even though, she had to admit, some of them, like Paul, Julia and Brad, were the loveliest people who had defended her fervently. And she was especially not about to forget that her father had been more willing to listen to the gossiping tongues of said judgemental losers than he was his own daughter. She turned to Jack. "This was a bad idea, I want to go home."

Jack handed her the keys to his car. "I'll be with you in a sec," he said. Gabrielle made a hasty retreat. "That went well," he said dryly.

"I shouldn't have said anything about her coming back."

"No, you shouldn't have. Look, I know this is hard for you to understand, I know there was a time when she planned on living there all her life... but times change. She had a difficult pregnancy made worse by the stuff people were saying about her. Widgee doesn't have the memories for her that it used to and she's happy here. And she has a lot more career opportunities than she would have in a small town. And she's surrounded by people who care about her."

"_I_ care about her. I'm her _father_."

"And I'm Laura's," Jack said in a deceptively calm voice that told Russel not to challenge that statement. "Which means I have a vested interest in doing the right thing by her mother." He paused and sighed, realising that they were talking in circles. And he recognised a stubborn streak in Russel that both he and Gabrielle possessed. They could talk in circles for weeks, months, years, none of them backing down, all the while with Laura growing up without the family that Jack wanted her to have. "Look, it's taken me a lot of time and effort to make her feel safe. I won't have anyone undermining that, not even you. But I do want you to be in their lives – I think it's important for Laura to have extended family."

"What about yours?"

"My dad is a womanising alcoholic who is more likely to hit on Laura when she's sixteen than acknowledge her as his granddaughter," Jack admitted. "But don't think I'm desperate enough I'll let you push Gabrielle into something she doesn't want... or do _anything_ to make her cry. You're going to have to give it time and be patient with her. Look, we usually take Laura and Leo to the park when we both have the afternoon off, which is tomorrow, if you and Ben want to come. I'll invite my sister, she'll feel better with more people around her."

"Who's Leo?"

"Our Golden Retriever. He only likes certain people, but if he likes you, you might get somewhere with Gabrielle. I swear she trusts his judgement when it comes to people more than she does her own sometimes."

Russel smiled. He was a farmer, he knew dogs, especially working dogs like Retrievers. "What made you get a Retriever?" he asked.

"They're supposed to be good family dogs and he took to Laura straight away." It sounded to Russel like that was the most important thing.

"Julia thinks very highly of you," Russel found himself telling Jack. "I think if she wasn't Julia, she'd have a crush on you." Jack looked quizzical and Russel explained. "She's just... Julia. She's very loyal – to her husband, to her friends. It would never occur to her to find a mate's boyfriend attractive, for all that Steve tried to prove otherwise. She basically used her family's position to run Steve out of town. It's mainly why a lot of people have come to realise that everything Steve said – " Russel shook his head sadly. Now that he realised what a pack of lies her daughter's ex-boyfriend had been spouting... but at least now she had someone who was devoted to her. "If you don't mind me asking, why are you doing this?" he asked. "It's not like you owe her anything."

Jack shrugged. It seemed so simple and obvious to him, although he knew he was well and truly in the minority of people who thought the way he did. "I love her," he said simply. "Both of them, I mean. There was something about Gabrielle from the moment I saw her – I wanted her to come back to Sydney with me, and I've never had that kind of connection with anyone before. Then when she got a job at All Saints, of all places – it just felt like it was meant to be. She jerked me around a lot 'cos she didn't want me to know about Laura, but when I did... maybe it's just that I never cared much about needing my children to be mine biologically, but when I first held Laura, she _was_ mine and that was all that matters." He thought about something, and grinned. "My sister Rebecca seems to think the same way as me. She makes the _best_ aunt."

Russel started to say something, but Jack's mobile beeped. "Sorry, that's Gabrielle," he said. "I have to go but you have my number... call me if you're interested in meeting us tomorrow."

* * *

"You're holding her like a football," Rebecca complained. Jack was running after Leo, and the five of them – Ben, Rebecca, Russel, Gabrielle and Laura – were sitting on the grass surrounded by the remains of a picnic. Gabrielle had reluctantly let Russel and then Ben hold Laura, and Rebecca was right on the money, he was holding her like you would hold a football.

"Yeah? What would you know about holding a baby?" Ben challenged. He wasn't sure if he liked Rebecca or not. She was gorgeous and spirited, but could also be an arrogant know-all... just as he remembered.

"I know plenty. Everyone says I'm a born aunt," Rebecca bragged.

"Yeah? I'm more her uncle than you are her aunt," Ben pointed out.

Rebecca's green eyes darkened, and Gabrielle laughed. "I suggest you don't say something like that again," she teased her brother. "She hits well above her weight class. C'mon, give her back. You _are_ holding her like she's a football."

Ben decided it was in his best interest to hand Laura back to Gabrielle. She and Rebecca had a strong camaraderie and he detected a co-conspirator vibe between them. It meant his older sister seemed much more at ease than she might otherwise have been, but it also made him feel like he was the butt of some unknown women's humour. "Which one of you decided to name the dog after Leonardo DiCaprio?"

Rebecca rolled her eyes. "What is _with_ you people? Haven't you heard of Tolstoy? _War and Peace_?" She was met with blank stares.

"I've _heard_ of him... I just have no interest in reading a doorstop of a book by a dead writer in a foreign language," Gabrielle said. "You know I love you guys, but aren't there enough books written in English that you have to start seeking Russian ones?" Gabrielle got a bread roll lobbed at her head for her pains.

Russell watched his daughter interact with his son and Rebecca. _Interesting girl_. Too good-looking and too smart, too secure in the power of both, but she and Gabrielle clearly had a fondness for one another that did his heart good to witness. Steve and Ashley's affair meant that Gabrielle's had been a double betrayal; she had lost her boyfriend and so-called best friend in one horrendous blow. It was good for her to have a girlfriend.

Jack and Leo returned to the group and he sat down behind Gabrielle. As Jack had told Russel, Leo and Laura had taken to each other in a way that children and animals did that defied adult instinct. Gabrielle was sitting cross-legged on the ground with Laura in her lap, and Leo padded over and rubbed his nose gently against Laura, as if instinctively aware that a nine-month-old baby was a fragile thing. "Man, now I want a Lab," Ben said. "All we had were Heelers."

"Retriever," Gabrielle corrected. "Labs aren't as shaggy."

"Whatever." The trouble with having an older sibling was that it seemed no matter how old you got, they were always older and wiser.

"Older siblings are _such_ know-it-alls," Rebecca teased, as if sensing Ben's thoughts. Gabrielle picked up the bread roll and lobbed it right back at her, laughing. She felt good, much better than she has yesterday, much better than she had expected to ever feel around her father again. Jack must have said something because Russel hadn't brought up her returning to Widgee, had actually seemed interested in the work she was doing at All Saints.

Smiling, she turned her neck so she could kiss Jack. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her softly before nuzzling her neck in a way that was cute and affectionate without being too much a PDA.

Russel watched the quick interaction. You could tell a lot about a couple by the way they shared small affections like that. Unhappy couples didn't demonstrate affection that way. God knew, Steve had never been like that. He began to understand why Jack had taken on responsibility for Laura; watching him with them, he seemed like the most natural father in the world. And husband... or at least partner.

The irony struck him. Steve hadn't been right for her, but if he had been halfway decent about Gabrielle's pregnancy, she would have stayed in Widgee, maybe even reconciled with Steve if the thought had occurred to him, all for Laura's sake. Instead, he had driven her out of town – and back to Jack, who was the best thing that had happened to her.

Finally, Steve Taylor had managed to do _one_ good thing by Gabrielle.

﻿


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"Have you seen this? Have you fucking _seen_ it?" Ashley reminded Steve of a banshee as she threw down the latest copy of _The Scene_, a glossy magazine that covered Sydney's social scene. It was folded back to an article about a rising young star in the surgical world and his partner and their adorable year-old daughter. Not to mention a very photogenic Golden Retriever.

Steve had never cared to be noticed by the medical community's elite – or Sydney society's, for that matter – so Jack and Gabrielle's fourth appearance in six months didn't bother him like it did Ashley. What _did_ bother Steve was seeing how happy they were together. Jack's arm was draped casually but possessively across Gabrielle's shoulder, and Laura... so _that_ was his daughter. She would be a year old now, and already looked like the classic blond beauty that her grandmother had been. Steve felt a twinge of regret. Gabrielle had been good to him, adored and revered him in a way Ashley never would... and now she was looking at Jack that same way.

If only the silly girl had agreed to have an abortion. He would have eventually forgiven her indiscretion with Quade... really, thinking women could sleep around like men, making him, Steve Taylor, look like a fool... but he could have forgiven her, had she agreed to have an abortion. Hadn't he made it clear several times that he wasn't ready to be a father? Did she really think he would change his mind, especially after she had humiliated him the way she had?

He looked at the photo spread. He wondered if Quade was dumb enough to believe that Laura was his, what lies Gabrielle had told him. He remembered how Gabrielle had pleaded with him to believe that Laura was his, didn't he remember when she had gotten seriously sick from food poisoning a few weeks before they had broken up, didn't he remember how she had told him that would affect the pill's effectiveness, how he had insisted on having sex anyway? Yes, Steve remembered and wished now that he hadn't been so reckless.

At moments like these, when he teetered in sobriety, he missed her and hated her at the same time. If only she hadn't found out about Ashley... if only she hadn't gotten pregnant... if only she hadn't insisted on keeping it...

Ashley noticed the faraway look in Steve's eyes and scowled. What was it about Gabrielle that she could still capture his interest after all this time?

Things hadn't gone well for them in the past year. Julia Croft had seen them run out of town. Of course, Steve hadn't exactly made it difficult for her by constantly showing up to work drunk, or by calling her away from a patient so he could have sex with her in a store-room... the patient had died and without references, they had found themselves working in a remote community too desperate to care about things like references.

But an alcoholic man was better than no man and Ashley couldn't think of anything else that she could be doing. Which is why it galled her to see Gabrielle smiling at her through the pages – _smugly_, Ashley thought – with a man at her side who was considered a rising star of the surgical community, who was featuring in the social pages. _It wasn't fair_.

Ashley remembered that party, when she had first seen Jack. It could have been _her_ who piqued Jack's interest, _her_ who he had his arm around in the pages of a glossy magazine. Ashley scowled at the unfairness of it all. Gabrielle had never even _wanted_ to appear in the social pages like Ashley had. And now she had stumbled into it and _it wasn't fair_. It should be _her_ gazing up through the pages, looking as though she owned the world. And maybe if things had been different –

Ashley didn't need to tell Steve she was unhappy; it was becoming increasingly obvious. If it wasn't for the fact he really had no-one else who would put up with him, he would have ditched her ages ago. It was times like this that he missed Gabrielle more than ever.

He watched Ashley intently. There was no denying that she was an attractive woman, but she lacked Gabrielle's warmth and knack for looking after him. Ashley only knew how to look after herself.

But at least Ashley was good for something. "Come here," Steve ordered.

Ashley glared at him. She recognised that look in his eye. Steve had _always_ lusted after her. Only, in the beginning, he had treated her like a princess, always begging her for sexual favours, buying her things in return. And now he treated her like some dowdy housewife who owed him conjuical rights. _Like hell_, she thought. She turned away from him.

"I _said_, _come here_," Steve said again, making a grab for her. She resisted, but although quite drunk, he was still far stronger than her and he dragged her over to the somewhat worn couch. He wanted to smack her. There had been a time when she had been willing and available for him whenever he had wanted her. She seemed to have taken a perverse joy in being able to satisfy him sexually in a way that straight-laced Gabrielle never could. But now, she acted like she was too good for him. Well, he'd show her. He yanked up her shirt and bra so her breasts were exposed and felt them up.

_You bastard_, Ashley thought, not for the first time since he and Gabrielle had broken up. It had been so much more fun being the other woman than being the girlfriend - if you called _this_ being a girlfriend. But then she figured she would gain nothing by holding out on him and submitted to his touch. After all, it wasn't like she had any better options right now.

_But soon_, she told herself. Soon she would have the life she deserved. After all, if Gabrielle could do it...

* * *

"I can't believe they're letting Mike Vlasek come back, " Jack complained to Gabrielle. He had just gotten the memo today. The older surgeon had abandoned Jack after just a few months – _and_ after pulling some serious shit on him, like walking out of a complicated surgery and leaving Jack to fend for himself. Not to mention that the entire surgical department except for Vincent had turned on him following Mike's departure. In particular, Bianca Frost. God, how he hated that woman. She had lorded her seniority over him and done everything she could to shut him out of plum surgeries.

Well, the joke had ended up being on her. She had miscalculated how much power Gabrielle had, both in the ED and with the admin who loved having an ED NUM who could handle Frank as well as Gabrielle could, and found herself never being paged for the complicated, career-enhancing cases that every trauma surgeon craved, instead, getting dumped with the most routine cases that even Bart could perform under supervision.

She had retaliated by being the only one who dared refer to Laura as 'Gabrielle Jaeger's little bastard', even though everyone more or less knew that she wasn't Jack's. The entire hospital had waited with baited breath to see how Jack would respond to that insult, and he had done so by allowing the editor of _The Scene_ to take a shine to him. He and Gabrielle could both be very charming, and more than one writer or photographer for the publication had made the extra time to talk to them both. They were more photogenic than the Craigs and far more likeable than both them and the Frosts. Something that galled Bianca to no end, which was Jack's main motivation. Plus, it got him the attention of many highly regarded members of the medical community, people who could further his career, and with Laura to think about, he wanted to get up the food chain as quickly as he could so he wouldn't be at the mercy of shiftwork the way registrars were.

Or be at the mercy of someone like Mike Vlasek, floundering when his support was suddenly removed.

He scowled again to think about it. And now Mike had somehow gotten the hospital to take him back despite walking out on all of them, not just Jack. Well, he'd better not be expecting a warm welcome. If he, Jack, had acted so unprofessionally, without a thought for how his actions affected others... but then, he was better than that. He had Gabrielle and Laura to think about.

"Don't worry about it, you don't need him," Gabrielle soothed him. She knew how pissed off he had been when Mike had left last year. "Maybe – maybe you could try hearing him out?" she suggested. "If nothing else, you don't want to get on his bad side. He has a lot of clout over your career," she reminded him.

Jack just grunted. He didn't need Mike. He didn't need anyone but Gabrielle and Laura.

"I hear you and Gabrielle have a daughter," Mike said pleasantly after several minutes of studied silence on Jack's part. Jack just grunted; he didn't see that his private life had anything to do with Mike. "Legend has it you've been quite the gentleman about them." No-one really believed that Laura was Jack's biological daughter, which only increased people's admiration of him. For reasons few people understood, he had taken responsibility for Laura in a way that was deeply admirable, no matter what people like Bianca Frost might say.

Jack glowered at Mike. "None of your goddamn business," he snapped.

Mike was too floored to be spoken too in such a way by his most junior registrar. He had been told that Jack was bitter about Mike's abrupt departure the previous year, and he couldn't really blame the younger doctor for his hostile reception. Frank had filled him in that Bianca Frost had made things as difficult as possible for Jack following his departure. He had never liked the woman, even when he had been high. There was something nasty and manipulative about her, and she liked to blame the boy's club rather than her own prickly personality for her failure to be noticed by people the way Jack had been. He'd heard Bianca had rubbished Laura and undermined Jack's determination to give her legitimacy – that must have _really_ infuriated Jack, more even than being shunted from the plum surgeries. "I'm sorry," he said to his former protégé.

Jack's eyes flashed. "So where did you go?" he asked.

"Soho," Mike said. It was his cover story. He couldn't bring himself to be upfront with Jack about his addiction. He had already gotten it from Cate and he didn't care to be judged again from someone who had been in nappies when he had first become addiction.

"Soho," Jack repeated. "Well, I'm _so_ glad you had a good time," he said sarcastically.

For the rest of the day, Jack treated Mike as if it was by his grace that he was in surgery, not the other way around. Their second patient was a routine case of a mangled leg after he had fallen from his boat. Things were going routinely until a Jack caught side of a tattoo on the man's arm and he froze, for a second not being able to breathe, not being able to do anything but remember...

_He was thirteen and for the most part, happy despite his step-mother's best efforts to make his life miserable. It helped that he had a defender in his neighbour Patrick Wesley, who fixed Jack up with odd jobs for cash and fought his step-mother Stella for him to skip a grade. It had incurred even more of Stella's animosity, but Jack hadn't cared. It had been worth it to flourish in a higher grade, and he had adored Patrick even more for it. Patrick was the father Jack wished he had. Certainly, he took better care of Jack than his own dad._

_Right up until the day Jack woke up from a nap in the spare room that Patrick had allocated him for whenever he wanted a quiet place to study, rest, or just get away from his family. Warning bells went off in his head immediately. Eleven years of living with Stella and he could sense when malice was intended for him. _

_He struggled to get up – he was lying on his stomach, which was something he never did unless Stella had belted him badly enough that lying on his back was too painful – and he felt the pressure of a strong adult's hand on the small of his back. "Easy, Jack," Patrick said soothingly, as if he were talking to a recalcitrant child who needed to be dealt with gently and not a teenage victim who had just walked into a paedophile's trap._

_"What – do – you – want – from – me?" Jack asked laboriously, although he already knew the answer. He wouldn't be here, naked on his stomach, if Patrick wanted .him for anything else. He began to tremble with ,fear._

_"Only to give you what you've been begging for," Patrick said matter-of-factly._

_"What? I never – " Jack started to say, and he was cut off by Patrick smacking him hard across the backside. Jack cried out._

_"Shut up!" Patrick yelled at him, the first time he had ever yelled at Jack. "You've been begging for this for years. All the times you've begged for my approval, my attention... all those times you stripped off in front of me..." Jack shivered to think of how many times Patrick must have watched him swimming, his predatory eyes taking in his young victim's body, waiting for God knew how long for Jack to mature to the age his particular perverted taste ran to..._

_"I didn't mean to..." Jack whimpered. He cried out as Patrick penetrated him with his fingers. "Please, stop. I don't want this."_

_Patrick smacked him again. "That's what you always say," he snarled, as if holding Jack and all the Jacks before him responsible for what to them were one set of signals and to Patrick were entirely another. His tone changed completely. "You'll enjoy this, I promise," he cooed. "It will be a little uncomfortable at first but you'll like it eventually."_

_"No!" Jack cried out. "Please, jet let me go – _please..._"_

_"Stop snivelling!" Patrick yelled at him. "If you don't stop acting like a baby, I promise you I'll make it hurt a whole lot more than it has to. If you're going to act like a baby, then do it into the pillow, do you understand?" Jack nodded and buried his face in the pillow, clutching it in his hands, bracing himself for what was going to come, knowing that it was going to hurt more than he could imagine..._

_He screamed when Patrick penetrated him, his screams muffled by the pillow. The pain was unbearable, and didn't stop as Patrick continued his brutal assault. It was going to kill him, Jack thought. Patrick was going to rape him to death. No-one could endure this kind of pain and live through it..._

"Jack?" Mike addressed him. Jack was standing there with the oddest expression on his face – horror, revulsion, _fear_. He clearly recognised the patient; Mike wondered who he was that unconscious, he could get that kind of reaction out of Jack. "Jack?" Mike asked him again. Jack just stood there, staring at the patient in front of him until Mike snapped and told him to get out of his OR. Jack went like he had the devil on his heels, grateful to be out of there.

But he couldn't stay away, and Mike found him later that day watching the patient through the glass of the observation room. He had decided to come clean with the younger doctor; maybe that would win Jack's trust and maybe then Jack would confide in him who Patrick Wesley was to him. "I wasn't in Soho," he admitted. "I was in rehab. For a morphine addiction. That's why I walked out on you in surgery – to get my fix."

He had expected Jack to treat him with the same disgust that Cate had, but he didn't. "The NUM we had before Gabby was an alcoholic. Didn't get along with the guy, had nothing to do with it, just our personalities, but I always respected the way he owned it. Did a sight better than my dad. I reckon he's helped keep VB in business the last thirty years."

There was a bitterness there that went beyond the usual child-of-an-addict thing. Jack had to really hate his father for something he had done – or hadn't done. "How do you know him?" Mike asked, jerking his head in Patrick's direction. "Friend, family member?"

"Neither," Jack said flatly. "He lived in my neighbourhood growing up."

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen."

"How well did you know him?"

"More than I wanted to."

It clicked with Mike – the revulsion, the fear, the reluctance to talk about his family. He had been sexually assaulted as a teenager and either couldn't tell his folks or hadn't been believed. "How long did it go on for?" he asked.

"Two years," Jack said, and it was clear he was trying not to start crying. "I guess he got bored of me eventually and moved onto someone younger and newer. Not before he gave me syphilis, though," he added bitterly. "Fucking doctor looking at me like _I_ was the deviant for having tertiary syphilis when I was sixteen."

At least that answered the delicate question of whether or not he had been raped. Mike was at a loss for words. He had only rudimentary experience with survivors of sexual abuse – and he didn't know what to say other than 'I'm sorry', which seemed so inappropriate. He settled for asking "Does Gabrielle know?"

Jack nodded. "She was so scared when I first found out about Laura – so disempowered after Steve – after – after – " Jack fumbled for an explanation. He had only outright admitted to a few people that he knew Laura wasn't his, and even then, not for months.

"This is Laura's real father?" Mike asked. Jack nodded. "And he was abusive?"

Jack filled Mike in on a few of the details. "I wanted her to know I knew how she was feeling. It seemed like the right thing to do."

Mike nodded. Well, it explained a lot about the emotional closeness of their relationship. Although it was hard to imagine that someone as strong and resilient as Gabrielle would ever get trapped in an abusive relationship. "You should tell her," he said.

"No. I don't want to burden her."

"You don't want to insult her either by thinking she can't handle it, either" Mike pointed out. "Jack, she's your _partner_. She'll want to know. You can't have too much experience with relationships if you think you can hide something like that from her."

Jack just grunted a reply.

* * *

"Babe, what's up? If I didn't know better, I'd say your dad died," Gabrielle joked. Jack, who had never had a good relationship with his father, hadn't spoken to him since their row over Laura. He wouldn't be this morose if Ned had died.

"I'm fine. Just a tough day."

Gabrielle scoffed at that. "I live with you, I know when you've had a tough day." When he'd had a tough day, he liked to be coddled; a home-cooked meal and lots of cuddles was the order. But today he was mopey and shied away from affection. And he had no interest in Laura when usually he could spent an evening playing with her, reading to her, bathing and dressing her. "C'mon. You daughter needs you." She picked Laura up and tried to hand her to Jack, but he physically pulled away. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Jack, what's the matter with you?"

He'd been doing a lot of thinking, and something had occurred to him. "I'm not her dad," he said flatly. "I'm not even her step-dad. I'm her mother's boyfriend."

There was a dead tone in his voice that frightened Gabrielle as much as his saying Laura wasn't his did. He had never said it out loud to her and for the past year, he had been more devoted to her than most real dad's were. "I know," she said quietly. "So?"

"So... you know I'm in a high-risk category to be a child abuser."

She had never thought about it, but Jack was right. "And?" she asked.

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"Why should it? Jack, what is this about? I don't understand."

Jack turned his head away. He felt every ounce of humiliation and shame welling up inside him as if it had been yesterday. He also remembered how isolated he had felt, that no-one would believe him or support him if they did. "Patrick was in the OR," he said flatly.

"Who?"

"Patrick Wesley," Jack said, and he remembered that he had never told Gabrielle his name... or if he had, he hadn't brought it up in the last year, so she couldn't be expected to remember even if he _had_ told her. "The guy who – the guy who – " he fumbled for words.

Gabrielle understood immediately. Jack had never spoken about the sexual abusive had had suffered for two years, but Gabrielle had picked up things in his behaviour that were testimony to how deep a scar it had cut across his phsycie. He hated being touched from behind, especially when she took him by surprise. And he was deeply homophobic, at least when it came to gay men – it was be easy to write off his disgust of them but his remarkable tolerance of lesbians as the typical male-fantasy line of thinking, but Gabrielle knew better. This was the mentality of a man who had so been deeply traumatised that no amount of time or counselling would ever erase it.

She put Laura in her bassinet and went back to the couch, easing Jack gently into her arms. He flung his arms around her neck with the desperation of the child he'd once been and started crying into her shoulder. She ran her fingers through his hair, along the back of his neck, and for once he didn't flinch. He'd never liked it when she ran her fingers across the back of his head or neck. She repressed the urge to shudder in revulsion when she realised it was a reaction borne of having his head held down. _Don't show revulsion_, she ordered herself. _It will just make him feel rejected_.

She let him cry for a solid half hour before he started to give her a fractured account of what had happened, starting when he was thirteen and ending with seeing Patrick today in the OR. "It's not fair," he said. "I finally got my life together and now he just gets to come back into my life like nothing happened."

She stroked his hair. No, it wasn't fair. Here was the most amazing man she'd ever known and his life had been destroyed by someone who thought nothing of using him as a sexual toy, a plaything of no more consequence than a kettle. "It's OK," she said. "You are the most amazing man that I know, and he can't take that from you. I wouldn't love you if you weren't."

"I'm so scared that I'll end up like him," he said.

"You won't. You think I'd let you? You think you can get around me any better than my staff can?" He made a sound which she took to be a grunt of amusement. Everyone knew there was no getting around Gabrielle Jaeger without her permission – and that included Frank, admin and Jack himself. "And more to the point, _I_ am not about to let anyone, let alone some monster, take you from me or Laura. Let him see how well he can do in a battle of wills with _me_." That got another grunt of amusement from Jack. The image of having someone as formidable as Gabrielle could be to fight his battles for him instead of the teenage boy he felt like right now made him feel better.

"Wish I'd had someone like you as my step-mother," he mumbled into hers shoulder. Gabrielle knew how to hurt people with a variety of instruments, and hurt them she would if anyone touched someone she cared about.

She laughed at that. It sounded vaguely incestuous. "Don't ever say that again," she said.

* * *

"Jack, please." Travis Knight had been following him around all around, refusing to give him a break, until Jack was forced to take him outside so his colleagues couldn't overhear them.

Christ, how had he gotten into this mess? When Patrick had turned up in the ED a few weeks ago, he had foolishly decided to treat the man – aka, confront him. Patrick had responded by taunting him and making him feel like a little boy again, the little boy who'd felt he had no options but to take the abuse. Said he had asked for it, wanted it... when Jack had felt better, he had reported Patrick to the police, then forgotten about it as much as he _could_ forget that a man who had sexually abused him for two years was walking free, probably still abusing teenage boys...

He had almost forgotten it when Travis had shown up, agitated and obviously sick. Charlotte had been concerned; he wasn't the kind of person Jack hung around with. Jack himself had concurred when he had seen Travis. He was immediately reminded of growing up in a working-class neighbourhood; Travis clearly looked uncomfortable around people of education and, often, money. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that Travis _was_ from the same neighbourhood that he'd grown up with; but for a few seconds, Jack had been struck dumb when Travis had announced that it was about Patrick Wesley.

"Find someone else," Jack said through gritted teeth. He had no intention of exposing Gabrielle and Laura to a trial... and to Patrick's anger.

"There _is_ no-one else," Travis insisted, and went on to tell Jack about another of Patrick's victims, whose mother had thought he had killed himself over stress about the HSC. "People will believe you," Travis said. "You're a doctor, you have cred." He was only too aware that his patchy track record of employment in low-paying jobs affected how people saw him. Never mind that Patrick had destroyed his self-esteem and made it impossible to aim for anything else. When he had heard that a doctor – not only a doctor, but a surgeon who had gone to one of the country's best universities on a scholarship – had also made a complaint, he had been overjoyed. His joy had soon turned to ash when he had discovered how reluctant Jack was.

"And how much cred do you think I'll have once this gets out?" Jack asked. "Look, I have a partner and daughter. I won't drag them into this – or subject them to Patrick's enmity. That means – "

"I know what it means," Travis half-lied. He had long since learned to look at the context to understand word that was foreign to him. "You – you have a girlfriend?" Travis asked, the envy in his voice apparent.

"Partner," Jack corrected.

"What's the difference?"

"Don't like the word defacto."

"So you're living with her?"

"Yeah." Jesus Christ, why was he letting this man hang around? "So I'm not going to court. I can't put either of them through that."

"How old is your daughter?"

Bloody hell, what was it about this man that Jack couldn't just shake him off? Anyone else who was following him like this he would have been rude to if need be... but he didn't have the heart to be rude to Travis. Travis was clearly burning for revenge, and Jack could relate to that. He wanted Patrick to pay, and perhaps if he had less to lose... "Eighteen months."

"Is she pretty?"

"Gabrielle's mother and my sister were – are – both stunning green-eyed blonds. Laura has good odds."

"Do you have a picture?"

It was the magic password to Jack's defences. He pulled out his wallet and, flipping through a series of photos he had, picked one from her first birthday six months ago. She had a pink party hat perched on her head, her blond curls and green eyes apparent. She was sitting in Gabrielle's lap and smiling at the camera – and her father holding it. "You take this?" Travis asked. Jack nodded. "She looks happy. Safe. They both do." He looked at the photo more closely. Gabrielle was smiling and looking happy. Even with his limited experience in relationships and love, he could see that she was a woman in love. "Do you have anything of the three of you?" he asked. A little more reluctantly, Jack pulled out a photo taken nine months ago when Gabrielle had reconciled with her father. "I always wanted a Lab," Travis said wistfully. They were such a gorgeous family.

"Retriever," Jack corrected. "Labs are shaggier. He's so protective towards her. Gabrielle and I have had to stop him from attacking many a stranger who got too close. Gabrielle said..." he trailed off.

"She said what?" Travis asked.

"She said let Patrick try and come after Laura. Leo would maul him in a heartbeat."

"She means a lot to you."

Jack laughed hollowly at that. "Only someone who doesn't have kids would say something like that. She means the _world_ to me. There's nothing more important to me than her and Gabrielle. Not my career, not my family. Mind you, _most_ things are more important than my family," he added, a touch bitterly.

Travis picked up on the bitterness. Jack had long since bolted from the working-class neighbourhood they had grown up in by the time Travis had been old enough to be familiar with the neighbourhood families, but he had known the Quades by reputation. Ned was an alcoholic and womaniser and Stella had become increasingly bitter over it, drowning her sorrows in her own bottle. "Your mum liked to ignore things, too?" Travis asked.

"My mum's dead. Stella's my step-mother."

"Ah." Well, that explained a lot. "OK, so Laura means the world to you. How can you sleep at night knowing someone like Patrick is out there preying on children?"

"Last I checked, he was more interested in teenage boys than baby girls," Jack tried to joke. It fell flat. "Don't you think I'm well aware that there are people out there who like to prey on kids? You think it doesn't make me sick to think that there are people out there who would love to do the things to her that were done to me? And don't you think that I'm well aware just how vicious Patrick can be? I will not take the chance that he'll go after them to punish me. I'm sorry, OK. Maybe if I didn't have so much to lose – but I do, so I can't." And with that he started to walk away.

"Lucky you that you _have_ something to lose," Travis yelled after him. Jack kept walking.

* * *

"I think you should do it," Gabrielle said later that night when he relayed to her what had happened. He'd had no intention of telling her, but Gabrielle had a way of sensing when he was down and getting the truth out of him.

"I don't think you quite get it," Jack said.

"I think I do," Gabrielle countered. "This guy is dying –"

"We don't know he's dying. He could be a hypochondriac. He could be making it up."

"Jack, I don't think he's making it up. And you told me he gave you syphilis. Is it really _that_ much of a stretch of the imagination that he might have passed on HIV. Or do you not like to think about it?"

Jack squirmed. No, he didn't like to think about it. If Travis was telling the truth – maybe Patrick had picked up HIV later, after he'd discarded Jack for someone younger and less used, maybe he'd had it all along and Jack had been lucky. _Lucky_. The word was sour in his mouth. Lucky to be raped and offered a blow-job as an 'alternative' for two years until Patrick got bored of him and decided to terrorise some other kid? Lucky that the worst he got was a treatable STD? Lucky to have been used up by a man quick to anger and take his anger out on whatever was the most effective way to terrorise his victim into submission? "I don't care if he's telling the truth or not," Jack admitted. "Not enough to put you and Laura at risk."

"I can look after us both," she said, slightly resenting Jack's over-protectiveness that bordered on condescension. "She's my _daughter_, Jack."

"She's my daughter, too," he reminded her. She didn't reply and he knew exactly what she was thinking; that she had more say in how their actions affected Laura. It was something he was well aware of – he himself had pointed out that in fact, he was merely her mother's boyfriend, not her father. But he had brought it up after seeing Patrick had frightened him to the core, and had never thought _she_ would bring it up. "You ungrateful bitch," he hissed.

Gabrielle was shocked by the tone in his voice and knew she had gone way too far. She hadn't even brought it up, but when Jack had gone all over-protective on her she had wanted something on him and it was the first thing handy. She of all people knew what Jack had done for Laura and how much she meant to him. Many biological fathers didn't do as good a job. "I'm sorry," she said contritely. "I didn't mean it."

Jack got out of bed. "Where are you going?" Gabrielle asked.

"To sleep in the spare room."

"Jack, please. Don't –"

He swung around, his eyes flashing bright green. "Don't you _dare_," he snapped. "You seem to like being a single mother so – enjoy it." And he turned his back on her and marched into the spare room. He curled up on the spare bed after locking the door and sobbed his heart out over a lot of things, not the least one being that Gabrielle didn't see him as Laura's father.

And maybe he only had himself to blame.

* * *

"Jack, who is he to you?" Sean asked. "A friend?"

"No-one," Jack said defensively. Of all the hospitals in Sydney, why had Travis had to collapse so close to All Saints? "Just... someone who thinks I owe him a favour."

"Good," Sean said. He was worried about Travis, who was equal parts seriously ill and noncompliant. "Use that." Jack glowered. He was not using testifying against Patrick as leverage to make him have treatment. The younger man could die before he exposed his daughter to Patrick's anger... regardless of what Gabrielle thought.

"You coward," Travis hissed when Jack tried to treat him. "You could do this if you wanted."

"Well, I don't want. Now drop it."

Later on, Gabrielle treated Travis. She recognised him by name; he recognised her from the photos Jack had shown him. "I wish I had what he has," Travis said enviously, and for the first time, Gabrielle came face-to-face with the longterm consequences of sexual abuse in children. Travis hated being touched, especially by men. Chances were, he had never been in a relationship, was possibly still a virgin... she shivered when she realised that if he was anything like Jack, Travis hadn't been a virgin since he'd been thirteen.

"He's a good dad," was all she said. He hadn't moved from the spare room in the last few days and she felt awful for what she had said. She hadn't even meant it, just resented how over-protective he was, like she couldn't make her own decisions and take care of their daughter as well as he could. "He doesn't want to expose Laura to any of this."

"You don't exactly look like a pushover," Travis said. He could see that she was young – younger than thirty, that was for sure – but she had strength and dignity that said she could handle her position of management. "You look like you can look after her fine."

Gabrielle frowned. "See, that's just it. He told me about you and his reasons for not wanting to testify... and I said something about me being her mum more than he was her dad."

"Huh?"

Of _course_ Jack wouldn't have said anything about Laura's paternity. He never thought about it himself... unless it was because being reminded of his abuse had made him think of his own predisposition to becoming an abuser. She found herself telling Travis about everything that had happened in the last two years, from her relationship with her abusive, cheating ex and meeting Jack to finding out she was pregnant and the hell Steve had put her through to ending up, through sheer luck, working at the same hospital as Jack. "I found out later he took the paternity kit Frank gave him and threw it down the chemical waste disposal. He had to have known... he just didn't care. He wanted to be Laura's dad and Steve didn't so to him, that was the end of it."

Travis's eyes were sparkling like he was a child being told about Santa, or Peter Pan. "Lucky Laura," he whispered, and it occurred to Gabrielle how different his - or Jack's – life would have been had they had someone like Jack willing to step up and be a father. It only made her feel worse for saying what she had to him. "That's why I won't support you," she said softly. "I believe in what you're doing but... if this is Jack's choice, I have to go along with that."

Gabrielle felt even sorrier for him that he looked at her both angrily and enviously. The anger, that she wouldn't support him with Patrick, was obvious. The envy - that Jack had a woman who would always side with him... she remembered how it had been for her, to be completely alone against a man who had abused her – not as much as Patrick had abused Jack and Travis, but abused her nonetheless – she would have envied anyone who was loved liked Jack loved. She wanted to help Travis, but if it meant going against what Jack wanted...

"You asked to see me?" Jack asked, a touch coolly later that day. He'd had it with Travis's emotional blackmail, and wasn't in the mood to deal with Gabrielle on top of it. When Bart had told him Gabrielle wanted to see him in her office when he was free, he had been tempted to blow her off. But he went.

"Jack, I'm sorry for what I said," Gabrielle said with obvious sincerity and contrition in her voice. "I know you're Laura's dad. _Everyone_ knows it. You're a better dad than most of the biological dads I know. It was just a stupid thing I said 'cos you can be really bloody condescending with your over-protectiveness."

"You like it when I protect you and Laura!"

"I do. But I can take care of myself. I don't need you watching my every move and making sure nothing bad happens to me. I'm a big girl."

"I don't want anything to happen to you or Laura," he said.

"Nothing's... going... _to happen_," she stressed. "Not when she has two parents who would die for her. I'd _love_ to see Patrick try and come near me or Laura. I'd make him sorry he ever laid a finger on anyone." She saw Jack smile slightly at that; whether it was from her comment about having two parents or the promise to make Patrick sorry if he ever came near them. "I've missed you," she admitted softly. Even though Jack's shiftwork schedule meant he frequently didn't get in until early in the morning, she had grown accustomed to being able to feel him next to her in bed at some point in the night. She missed the way he smiled at her when he saw her across the room, or passed her in the hallway. He seemed to have been making an effort to avoid her the last few days, and she had been miserable because of it. "I hate fighting with you."

"Me, too," Jack admitted. He lunged for her and took her in his arms, kissing her passionately. "God, I've missed you," he breathed huskily between kisses. "I've missed you so much."

She put her arms around his neck and he put his hands on her hips, hoisting her up onto her desk. She wrapped her legs around his waist and reached around his back, running her hands up and down his body, pulling his shirt out of his pants...

Bart coughed from the doorway and Jack and Gabrielle pulled apart. Jack felt his face start to flush and he was grateful it hadn't been Frank or Mike that had walked in on him. "I'll, uh, see you at home," he said to Gabrielle, bolting past Bart with his head down.

"Sort things out?" Bart asked, feeling just as embarrassed to walk in on them as they were to be walked in on. Everyone knew they had had some kind of fight; you couldn't work together and not have everyone know about it when something went wrong. Still, it would be handy if they patched things up at home.

Gabrielle nodded slightly, wishing that she could feel like the superior staff member that she was to Bart. But at least they had sorted things out and she had tonight to look forward to. _Their first fight_. At least if you didn't count when she had held him at arm's length before he had found out about Laura. Odd, because they had been together properly for a year now but never really fought. Maybe it was an indication of how over-protective Jack was of her and how he was starting to think of her as an equal and not a child who needed to be protected. "Mmm-hmm," she said.

* * *

Gabrielle let herself into the house, tired from an afternoon in the park with Leo and Laura. Leo was very protective of Laura, and while he could usually be calmed down with a direct order from Jack or Gabrielle, but this afternoon, he had been surrounded by people who wanted to look at and touch such an adorable baby, and hadn't liked it one bit. Gabrielle was relieved to be home. One more well-meaning but inquisitive person and Leo might have been facing a lethal injection for touching his charge.

Typically, the dog calmed down as soon as they entered the house. "Cheeky mutt," Gabrielle said under her breath when the retriever stretched out on his indoor mat as if he were the most placid animal in the world. "Why can't you be so easygoing around strangers?" she asked him. Leo gave him a look as if to say it wasn't strangers that bothered him so much as strangers around Laura. "You're just like Jack," she told him, and she could have sworn Leo took this as a compliment.

The doorbell rang and Leo sprang to his feet immediately. "Had better not be those bloody Mormons," Gabrielle muttered. Jack, who had a hearty dislike of organised religion and a knowledge of theology and history that was almost on a par with his knowledge of medicine, had reduced them to blustering and beating a hasty retreat on more than one occasion by arguing religion versus science with them and since then, they seemed to have an innate sense of when it was just her at home. Maybe she should engineer for them to touch Laura and sick Leo on them.

It was a well-dressed man who Gabrielle guessed to be in his late-forties or fifties. "Hi," he said. "Is Jack home?"

"Sorry, he's still at work. He was supposed to be home an hour ago, but –" she shrugged. "It's what I get for dating a surgeon, I suppose."

"I bet he doesn't have the heart to leave when he has the opportunity and sticks around to be there for a patient," the man said.

Gabrielle laughed at that. He had Jack to a tee. "I'm sorry, you are...?" she asked.

He held out his hand. "Alex," he said. "I'm a family friend of the Quades. I live in Melbourne so I rarely see Ned or the boys –" Gabrielle smiled at this; Alex spoke about 'the boys' in a paternalistic way that you would be forgiven for thinking they were still in kindergarten. " – But I had to come pay a visit when Ned said Jack had a little girl."

Gabrielle smiled wryly at that. "He actually said that?" she asked.

Alex laughed, knowing what she was thinking. He had always had a knack for reading people. "He said something about a gold-digger foisting her brat onto the Quade name. If it makes you feel better, you don't look like much of a gold-digger."

"And what's a gold-digger supposed to look like?"

"Ostentatiously dressed, dripping with jewels, not a hair out of place... not a baby in one arm and a dog on the other."

Gabrielle decided she liked Alex. "I'll take that as a compliment. Look, come in. Jack should be home soon. I'm sure he'd love to see you. You're welcome to stay for dinner. It's nothing fancy, but –"

"Ned said you're a country girl," Alex said, and it was clear from his tone that he held such a background in high regard, much higher than Ned had. "I'm not one to turn down country food. Fancy never much appealed to me, anyway."

Alex stepped into the house and Leo immediately growled at him. "Leo!" Gabrielle admonished the dog. He kept growling and straining at his leash. "I'm sorry," she apologised. "He's not usually like this. I mean, he's super-protective of Laura and doesn't like strangers around her but he usually calms down once Jack or I tell him off. But we went to the park today and I think having all these strangers wanting to admire her made him agitated. Here, I'll just take him outside." She then realised that she needed both hands to handle a highly agitated Leo, and one of her hands was occupied with Laura.

"Here," Alex said, holding his arms out for Laura. "I'm good with babies." Gratefully, Gabrielle handed Laura over to Alex and struggled to drag Leo out to the back of the house and the backyard. Leo seemed determined to stay put.

"Sorry about that," Gabrielle apologised again when she returned from latching Leo's doggy door shut. "He's usually the most placid of animals. He was curled up on his mat before you arrived."

"It's fine. It's good to have a dog so protective," Alex said, smiling understandingly.

"You're good with her," Gabrielle noted. "You got any kids yourself?"

Alex shook his head. "Sadly, no. But I've always had a knack with kids."

"Shame that some people who are so good with children never get to have them," Gabrielle commented.

"... And some are neglectful at best and can breed like rabbits," Alex added. It was clear she was thinking about Ned Quade. "I like Ned, but he was never going to win father of the year award. And Stella's still mad as hell that Jack's about ten times as successful as bother her sons combined."

Gabrielle laughed at that. She knew Jack routinely sent home copies of his tax return and articles cut from _The Scene_ purely for the purpose of pissing Stella off. "You know she's not his mum?" she asked.

Alex nodded. "Not many people do. It was something Stella tried to hide. Never worked out what she thought she was achieving. It was obvious she hated him."

So he had known Jack as a child, and was close enough to the family to know that Stella was only his step-mother. Here was a golden opportunity to find out more about Jack, and Gabrielle pounced on it eagerly.

Time flew by over tea and a batch of ANZAC biscuits. Gabrielle was so enthralled by the goldmine of information that Alex was that she didn't register the sound of Jack's car coming up the drive, or the key in the lock. The first thing she _did_ register was the howl of pure fury that came from Jack's mouth. He _flew_ across the room and physically put himself between Alex and Gabrielle. When he saw that Alex was still holding Laura, he wrenched the baby out of the older man's arms with such force that Laura, familiar only with the gentlest of handling, started screaming. "Get the _fuck_ away from my family, Patrick."

_Patrick_. Gabrielle's blood went cold. This was _Patrick Wesley_? She had let the man into her housed? Let him hold her daughter? She had an image of him as a perverted derelict who inspired feelings of creepiness. But of course that would be wrong. Of course he would be a charming, well-dressed, mild-mannered man who put people at ease and made trusting him with their children feel like the most natural thing in the world. It was how they got access to the kids they abused. It was how he had gotten Jack to trust him, to idolise him.

And she had thrown Leo out of the house when he had growled at Patrick. Her _dog_ had better sense that her. How could she have been such a bad judge of character?

Jack handed Laura to Gabrielle. "Run her a bath," he directed her in a cold voice. "I want you to scrub the filth off her." He grabbed Patrick by the arm, too angry to care that he was touching the man who had destroyed his life, and hauled him outside.

"Gorgeous girl," Patrick said as casually as if he were talking about the weather.

"What the fuck are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"Your dad. Wouldn't stop whinging about the fact he paid the rent on this place when he was actually paying the mortgage." Jack's heart lurched at that. _Of course_. This had been his mum's place, the mortgage largely paid for by a series of men who paid for her to live in a certain style in return for certain favours. Ned had been furious to know that the house had been Carla's outright, and thanks to a deal worked out between Jack and Rebecca, was now Jack's outright. Mind you, it could very well have been Stella who had maliciously informed Patrick as to his residence. "She's gorgeous," Patrick repeated. "Just like her dad," he added in a smug, creepy voice.

Jack's head snapped up to meet Patrick's eyes. They were cold, smug, triumphant. "You were always my favourite, Jack," Patrick said soothingly, almost seductively – loverlike. Jack wondered if Patrick truly believed what had gone on between them had been consensual. "I never met someone so... eager to please. I wonder if it's a trait she'll inherit."

"You _sick fuck_," Jack snarled. "Haven't you taken enough from me?"

"And what did I take from you, Jack? All those times you came over in your swimmers, begging me to notice you, showing off your body. I still remember how eager you were to please me when you were on your knees – "

_Smack_. Jack's fist connected with Patrick's nose. He took a degree of pleasure in hearing the bone break. Patrick staggered backwards, howling in pain. Jack suspected it was the first time one of his victims had hit back. "I'll get you for this," Patrick swore. "What will your precious magazine think of their golden boy when they find out he's a faggot brat?"

Jack laughed at that. "Do you really think I care about some dumb social magazine?" he asked, more than a little creeped out that Patrick had been following him through the social pages – and, by extension, Gabrielle and Laura. "You stupid fuck. The only things that matter to me are Gabrielle and Laura. It was the only reason I wasn't going to prosecute when Travis pushed me."

"Travis Knight?" Patrick asked, and there was a reminiscent gleam in his eyes that was creepy. "Such a sweet boy... not as sweet as you, though. How is he?"

"He's dying," Jack said. "You can add him to the list of people who are dead because of you." Patrick might not have caused the Wilson's, but in Jack's mind, he was just as responsible for Travis's ruined life as if he _was_ responsible for the disease.

"What a shame," Patrick said, voice reeking with insincerity.

"And if it's the last thing I do, I will help him put you in jail," Jack said. "You come after my family – I promise you, I am not my father or Stella. I actually give a shit if you so much as _look_ at Gabrielle or Laura the wrong way." He clenched his fists, wanting to take another swing at Patrick, wanting to pummel his face into a bloody mess and make him scream the way he'd made Jack scream...

Jack turned on his heels and fled back into the house, leaving Patrick and his broken nose on the driveway.

He entered the downstairs bathroom. Gabrielle had started to run a bath but had abandoned it to sob hysterically. "It's OK," he said, pulling her into his arms.

"I let him into the house!" she sobbed. "I left him alone with her to take Leo outside! _He_ knew something was up and I didn't. I thought he was this charming man who wouldn't hurt a fly."

"That's what he _does_, babe. He charms people into thinking you could trust him with your life – and your kid's lives." He tried to soothe her when inwardly he was shaking with rage. Patrick had come into his house, handled his baby, _threatened_ her... well, he wasn't going to get away with it. Jack hadn't wanted to prosecute Patrick for fear of reprisals against Gabrielle and Laura, but now that Patrick had come into his home... "He won't get away with this," he promised Gabrielle. "I promise, I'll see him rot in jail if it's the last thing I do."


	7. Chapter 7

"Harder, Jack. _Faster_," Gabrielle directed Jack, wrapping her legs around his waist that fraction tighter, so tight that if he had been any less lost in a combination of raging grief and raging desire, it would have hurt.

"If I go any harder, I'm going to hurt you," he grunted, partly aware that she wasn't exactly doing him any favours with her nails dug into his back and raking downwards several times. With another grunt, he pounded her furiously, feeling like he had to crush her beneath him to get as close to her as he wanted.

"I don't care. _Please_." He couldn't deny her, he knew exactly how she was feeling. Frantic, demanding sex that was rough to the point of violence felt like the only way he could be connected with her, the only way he could feel alive.

He screamed as he climaxed and buried his head in Gabrielle's shoulder, bursting into another bout of sudden tears. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you," he sobbed. She held him tightly, knowing exactly how he felt. Watching a colleague die on the table like that had shaken everyone. Jack had taken Gabrielle home without a word of protest from either Gabrielle or Frank... or Zoe.

_Poor Zoe_. Jack wrapped Gabrielle's hair around his fist and yanked her head so he could kiss her hard. She responded eagerly. "I love you," he whispered when he could bring himself to break his mouth away from hers.

Gabrielle snuggled into Jack's embrace. Like Jack, the thought of being without him – she shuddered at the thought. They all thought they were immortal, or at least that death was a long way off. Even as ED staff, they had never thought that the rules applied to _them. _"I can't stop thinking about it," she admitted. Not just the loss of Sean, but the idea of losing Jack in the same way Zoe had lost Sean...

"I know," he said. He wrapped his arm tightly around her, needing physical closeness to keep him remaining at least moderately calm. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." He wondered if he could convince Mike to let him stay in the ED for the next few days. The idea of having Gabrielle out of his sight scared him. Besides, he thought ruefully, Mike probably wouldn't be able to talk. Everyone knew he had feelings for Zoe, he wouldn't want to leave her side any more than Jack would be wanting to leave Gabrielle's. _And I have a much better claim to be with her_, Jack thought.

"You'll stay with me?" she asked, as if sensing her thoughts. "At work, I mean?"

"Of course. Bianca can have the surgical department all to herself. God knows, it's what she's wanted since Mike got back. And I'll talk to Frank. Maybe he'll let us keep Laura in your office." The three floors between the ED and the crèche suddenly seemed like three continents.

As if sensing that he was talking about her, Laura stirred from her sleep and started to cry. "I'll get her," Gabrielle said. "You need a shower. You're bleeding." Jack reached behind him and ran his hand across his back, getting it wet with a mix of sweat and blood. "Sorry," she said sheepishly.

"It doesn't matter. But I think you forfeit the right to bitch about your sheets," he said ruefully, eyeing the spots of blood he'd managed to get on the sheets. "I thought you were supposed to keep your nails short." Mind you, with the pressure Gabrielle had been applying, it wasn't surprising that she had drawn blood.

He went off to have a shower, leaving Gabrielle to take care of Laura. He returned to find her in tears. "Hey," he said, taking Laura from her and putting her in her cot, then taking Gabrielle in his arms. "I'm here."

"I can't believe he's gone, Jack," she sobbed in his arms. "He was alive and talking and then..." she trailed off into muffled sobs against Jack's chest.

"I know, baby." He ran his lips through her hair and held her tighter. "But I'm here and I'm not leaving you. You mean too much to me to ever leave you."

* * *

"You've never handled a child, have you?"

"Was it that obvious?" Travis asked sheepishly.

"You're handling her like a football. You remind me of her uncle when you do it." Somewhat of an apt comparison, because Jack was beginning to think of Travis as a brother, so that kind of made Laura her niece, didn't it? "Here." Jack adjusted Laura in Travis's arms so he was holding her properly.

"Sorry," Travis said.

"Don't be. She likes you." As if to demonstrate, Laura grabbed at Travis's shirt and smiled cheekily at him.

"She's beautiful," Travis said, a touch enviously. "Does Gabrielle dress her in anything but pink?"

Jack grinned sheepishly. "Actually, that was me. And... no. Not if I can help it." Thought Travis couldn't exactly deny that with her fair complexion and blond hair, Laura looked adorable in pink. Though she probably looked adorable in most things.

"If you boys are done, she needs to be fed," Gabrielle said. She was surprised Jack hadn't noticed it himself; he was seriously occupied with Travis. She took Laura from Travis's hands and placed her in her high-chair.

"Is she OK with me being here?" Travis asked. "I mean, being around Laura?"

"Yeah, she's fine. It's not 'cos of Patrick, if that's what you mean. Even if you _were_ a threat to her, there's not much you could do with Gabby or Leo around. She's just always been skittish with strangers being around Laura. And a colleague died a few weeks ago, neither of us likes being separated from her."

"I'm sorry," Travis said. His gaze wandered to Gabrielle and Laura, who was happily making a mess, getting more of her food on her clothes, high-chair tray and the floor than she was in her mouth.

"We're dealing. It's just made us a bit more over-protective of Laura than usual," Jack said. "Gabby in particular."

Gabrielle was laughing at her daughter's antics and attempted to clean her up, her attempts thwarted as Laura seemed to splatter food faster than Gabrielle could clean her up. "She seems like a good mum," Travis said wistfully.

"She is."

"I wish I'd had a mum like her." Jack nodded silently at that. Both their lives would have been far happier had they had parents who gave a shit about them. "Have you heard anything from – uh –"

"Laura's real dad?" Jack offered. Travis nodded. "No, thankgod. He could be rotting in a ditch somewhere for all I care. I hope we never hear from him again. Him and that tramp who calls herself a friend."

* * *

"YOU RUINED MY LIFE!"

Steve looked up to see Ashley barrelling towards him, eyes full of fury. It wasn't the first time that Ashley had accused him of ruining her life; it seemed like she couldn't go a week without reminding him that her life would have been better without him. Her career would have been better, her boyfriend would have been better – in short, she would have had the life Gabrielle had.

_That_, Steve thought, was a laugh. Ashley lacked the professionalism that had earned Gabrielle what she had. Ashley _loved_ to blame Steve for being deregistered, but the fact was, she had willingly abandoned her patient to have a tryst with him; he hadn't exactly dragged her off and raped her knowing her patient was dying. And she had never been willing to go that extra mile – staying after her shift was over to get a job done or see a patient through, being endlessly chirpy and definitely _not_ routinely showing up hung over – that had characterised Gabrielle's career. And there was a certain sluttiness that meant men like Jack Quade would never look twice at her – as she had already discovered, at that party now almost three years ago.

_Three years_, Steve thought. Time had flown by in a series of drunken hazes and increasingly undesirable jobs. No town with a population of more than ten thousand people wanted to hire people with his and Ashley's chequered employment histories. Three years ago he had been happy, as the respected doctor of a decent-sized farming community, and with a devoted, classy girlfriend hanging off his every word. Now, he was practicing in some backwater not locatable on most maps, with a girlfriend who's lifestyle was starting to eat at her showy good looks. And Ashley's showy good looks – and her complete lack of sexual inhibitions – were the only things she had to recommend for her. She was lazy and whiny. She hated her lot in life but did nothing to improve her prospects. She complained and whined and refused to take responsibility for her actions. If he had any better options, he would have ditched her a long time ago.

He wished he had never gotten involved with her. If it hadn't been for Ashley, he would still have his life with Gabrielle. Maybe he wouldn't even mind having a kid. Laura certainly looked adorable in those articles that Ashley insisted on collecting – pictures that Steve had thumbed through more than once, staring at his daughter, thinking about how much she resembled her grandmother.

He should never have gotten involved with Ashley. He should never have allowed her to ruin his life.

"What did I do this time?" he asked sneeringly. "You been reading that stupid magazine again?"

Actually, Jack and Gabrielle hadn't featured in the magazine in the last few months. Ashley knew she should take pleasure out of that, but something told her that just because they were no longer in the papers, they hadn't relinquished their positions as the golden couple of Sydney's medical community. Every time she thought about it, Ashley felt sick with jealousy. Perhaps if Jack had noticed _her_ at that party... but instead, Gabrielle had caught his eye, and now it was Gabrielle enjoying the life as half of a golden couple, Gabrielle, who would have been happy living in her farming community for the rest of her life.

And Laura was a beautiful little girl. Ashley had no maternal inclinations, but she would have liked such a gorgeous little girl to show up. Especially in those pink-and-white outfits that Gabrielle was fond of putting Laura in, complete with pink headbands and ribbons.

It wasn't fair. And now she would _never_ have that life.

"I can't have children," she spat. "Because _you_ gave me Chlamydia."

"_Me_? You weren't exactly a virgin, princess," Steve laughed nastily. "More like the town bike. And so what? You don't want kids anyway." He had seen Ashley with children; she had no maternal instinct and little tolerance for those who couldn't fend for themselves. Come to think of it, she didn't have a very good temperament to be a nurse, either. Steve had been too distracted by her other talents to realise that until now.

Ashley glowered at her. Whether or not she _wanted_ kids was beside the point. She had a right to make that choice for herself. And Steve had taken that choice from her. At least, she liked to _think_ he had. Much more convenient to blame him for her infertility than take responsibility for it herself. Even though, as Steve had said, she had hardly been a virgin – but _town bike_ was taking it a bit far. _He_ had been far more promiscuous than she had been. She simmered with resentment at the double standard. "I hate you!" she yelled at him.

Steve poured himself a hefty scotch, no mixer, and gulped it down. _The feeling's mutual, sweetheart_, he thought. Or at least it was when she was acting like this. Why couldn't she get it through her thick skull that women were supposed to be supportive and obedient – like Gabrielle. He bet _she_ never gave Jack the kind of hassles that Ashley gave him. "You can always leave," he goaded her, knowing full well that she wouldn't. Instead, she just glowered at him before flouncing off, leaving Steve to his scotch and his memories.

So Ashley couldn't have children. Which quite possibly meant that he couldn't, either. He didn't particularly care – he had never felt any parental inclinations, although he had to admit, his daughter was quite an adorable little miss. But that made him think of Laura and Gabrielle, and how happy they looked from the pages of _The Scene_. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, having a family like that. It certainly seemed to have worked for Quade.

Angrily, he finished off the scotch. Ashley must be pilfering from his supply, no way could he have drunk all that bottle in just two nights. God, how different his life would have been had Gabrielle not left him.

Ashley had gone to flip through her copies of _The Scene_, bitterly taking in the smiling, happy glossy pictures. It wasn't fair that Gabrielle should end up with everything when she would have been happy to stay on her dinky little farm working in a small community hospital, and she, who had had such ambitions of a glamorous life in a big city, should be stuck in this backwater. She scowled at the images, as if Gabrielle was personally responsible for things turning out this day. One day, she promised herself, she would settle the score and get what she deserved.

* * *

"I think I got ripped off in the boyfriend stakes," Zoe said, a heavy note of sadness mixed in with her attempt at humour. "I could never get Sean to do my rosters. Especially not when he was off-duty."

Jack shrugged. "I was always good at this, and I'd rather wait until she's done. I can do yours, if you want," he offered.

"You're sweet, but I like keeping busy."

Jack nodded acknowledgement. He never knew what to say to Zoe. 'I'm sorry' didn't cover it, not by a long shot. He and Gabrielle had agreed to dial back their naturally affectionate relationship to a point people started asking them if they were all right. But it didn't seem right to flaunt their happiness in Zoe's face. He went back to sorting out Gabrielle's rosters for her, his right hand clutching a pencil, his left toying absently with something in his pocket.

Zoe noticed immediately. She was well aware that Jack and Gabrielle were trying not to flaunt their relationship; she didn't have the heart to tell him that while she appreciated the effort, it pained her no less to see a disgustingly in-love couple no more that in pained her in general to think about Sean. Besides, she quite liked the way he occupied Gabrielle's desk, quietly doing her administration stuff for her while he waited for her, not fussing over her as if she was the first woman in the world to watch the man she loved die. It actually made her feel a little better to see him and Gabrielle so obviously happy. Sean's death had clearly brought them closer together – if that was at all possible. And if her suspicions correct and she knew what Jack was thinking, then she heartily approved.

Gabrielle entered the office, and Jack was so lost in thought – thoughts Zoe suspected had nothing to do with the nursing rosters – that he jumped up, startled. He seemed to let go of something and not even notice it. He stood up and kissed Gabrielle chastely on the cheek; Zoe resisted the urge to smile at that. "You ready to go?" he asked Gabrielle.

She nodded tiredly. The whole staff had taken a blow from Sean's death that they hadn't yet fully recovered from, and on top of that, Dan and Erica had recently gotten involved following his Hep-C contraction. (At least, she had thought at the time, something good had come out of _that_ disaster; for all that Bart might think otherwise, it had been obvious to everyone, except maybe those three, that Dan and Erica were a match made in heaven.) So naturally they were engineering a lot of sickies between them – Gabrielle was pretty sure Dan wasn't as sick as he was making out. The upshot was that she had a lot more work to do, and that would continue until things got settled. When that would be, she had no idea. At least admin had finally given her extra money to hire temps. And Jack had been a godsend, actually seeming to _enjoy_ sticking around and doing her paperwork while he waited for her. "Take me home and take me to bed," she said quietly, so Zoe wouldn't overhear.

He grinned at her. "My pleasure."

Once they shut the door behind him, Zoe went to retrieved the object that Jack seemed to have forgotten. It was exactly what she thought it was, and she smiled in happiness for them and a touch of sadness for herself. But what was done was done, and she wasn't about to begrudge their happiness. And something told her that Jack would hate to lose it – or have Gabrielle come across it before he wanted her to. She stashed it in her delegated drawer, then, remembering that Frank had absolutely no respect for what was 'hers' and what was 'his' – he was the HoD, so to his reasoning, _everything_ in the office, including whatever of Gabrielle's took his fancy, was his – retrieved it and put it in her handbag instead.

Predictably, the next day, a frantic Jack was scrambling under the desk looking for it. "This what you're after?" Zoe asked, retrieving the ring box from her bag.

"Um... yeah." Jack made a motion to snatch it from her, as if in doing so he could get out of admitting what it was, but Zoe held it behind her back.

"Jack, stop it," she ordered.

"Stop what?"

"Stop trying to make me feel better by acting like you and Gabrielle don't have something amazing," she said. Jack looked extremely guilty. "I know you're trying to respect my grief and I appreciate the thought, but... it doesn't hurt any more or less to see you together. And you can pass that onto Dan and Ricki, too," she added. When Jack looked suitably contrite, she handed him the box. "You have exquisite taste," she complimented him.

"Thanks. Can't take the credit, though. It belonged to someone who was like a mum to me. She wanted me to have all the jewellery her husband gave her to give to someone special. Wanted it to be the last joke on him, that it brought _someone_ happiness. Whatever asshole the guy might have been, he had great taste in jewellery."

Zoe nodded. "How long have you been thinking about it?" she asked.

"Dunno exactly," he replied. "It started months ago – she's so scared of having another child 'cos it was so awful for her the first time. I thought maybe if she had the ring and the piece of paper, she'd realise how committed I am to her. Then it was just... I couldn't think of any reason _not_ to marry her. She's everything to me. I can't imagine my life without her. Sorry," he added, thinking that maybe it was a bit tacky to say something like that to someone who was having to learn how to life without the one they loved.

"It's OK. But I expect an invitation to the wedding."

"That's if she says yes."

"She'd be a fool not to, Jack."

* * *

"Jack?"

"Yeah?" Jack stroked Gabrielle's bare back idly. Her hands were on his chest and he imagined how his ring would look on her finger.

"If we had a child – would you feel different about Laura? I mean, would you think of them as your child and Laura as your step-daughter?"

He wriggled so he was in a half-sitting position and could look down at her, meeting her eyes with his. "Of course I wouldn't," he said indignantly, thinking that she was spoiling for another fight about her being more Laura's mum than he was her dad. "I thought we already established that," he said, warning her not to delve too far into _that_ topic.

"We did, but... Jack, so often people adopt 'cos they think they can't have biological children and then it turns out they can and they don't have the same connection with the adopted kid."

"Well, not me," Jack said firmly. "If I'd given a crap about biology, I wouldn't have tossed that paternity kit. Look, what's this about? I thought we'd already resolved this."

"We have, but... Jack, I've been thinking. Maybe it's time we had another kid."

"What?" It was so out-of-the-blue that it took a few seconds for it to sink in. Here he was, scraping together the courage to broach marriage, and she had casually brought out having a baby like – well, like she _hadn't_ made it clear how much the idea terrified her.

"Well, Laura's nearly two and I don't want them to be too far apart. I mean, I know it worked for Ben and me and you and Bec, but there are all these studies that say – "

"Babe, I get that much. I actually happen to agree with you. And I don't think Bec and I are the best example of how to raise your kids. I just... wow. Where did all this come from? The last time we talked about this, you were terrified of being pregnant again." Admittedly, that had been over a year ago, apart from when they'd briefly revisited the issue when deciding to stop using condoms, but she hadn't said a word about actually _trying_ for another kid. Hell, he had started thinking about marriage because of the logic that maybe she'd be warmer to the idea if she had the security of marriage behind her.

"I was. But being with you and Laura... I don't know anyone who was made to be a parent like you. It made me realise that whatever happens between us as a couple, you'll always be there for me as their dad. It's not in your nature to abandon people. And then I got to thinking that I don't want just Laura. She'll grow up to be a spoilt brat if she's an only child... especially the way _you_ dote on her."

"_Me_? _You_ spoil her rotten," he said indignantly. Then it sank in what Gabrielle was suggesting. "You're serious? You want to try for another kid?" Gabrielle nodded and Jack broke into a huge grin. "Wow, this is... great. This is – oh, I can't believe I completely forgot." He reached for his bag and pulled out the ring box. "I had this speech all planned out but since you brought it up, I reckon we should make it official."

Gabrielle felt her heart catch in her throat. It was far from an ultra-romantic proposal, but Jack was right, since she had brought it up... She opened the box and gasped when she saw it. "Jack, I can't accept this," she said. "It's too much. I know how much you make."

He explained where he'd gotten it from. She had met Mary a few times, although she and Jack seemed more content to be by themselves. "She's going to be so happy when I tell her," Jack gushed, his eyes sparkling. "And Bec – you know she loves you." His eyes glazed over and he seemed to be picturing the ceremony. "Whatever you want," he promised. "I want to give you the wedding you deserve."

"Isn't there a long wait on some places?" Gabrielle asked. "Like eighteen months or more." They certainly couldn't expect to get a place at, say, the Botanical Gardens – or anywhere popular, for that matter – this late in the year. Jack nodded vaguely, his mind elsewhere. _Gabrielle and Laura Quade_. "Then I think it's far more important that you have the wedding you need than the one I want."

"Huh?"

"Do you think you'll ever get over it if Travis isn't there? Or Mary, for that matter? I don't need a big wedding, Jack, I just need _you_. But they mean the world to you and I don't think you'll ever get over it if they're not there. Hell, I think you're going to feel bad that your _mum_ won't be there. I know I will."

"You never knew my mum," he kidded. But once more, he was surprised by Gabrielle's insight. He had never stopped to think about how much he wanted Mary and Travis to be there. They were the family he would have chosen for himself, as reluctant as he had been to accept Travis into his life in the first place. They certainly meant more to him than his _actual_ family. "It really wouldn't bother you?" he asked.

She shook her head. Once upon a time, she had thought about having the lavish wedding that Jack had been talking about – although in her case, it was only as lavish as could be gotten in the small chapel that serviced most of Widgee – with Steve, a fantasy she had held onto until she had found out about his infidelities. A romantic ideal with a man who was the furtherest from a romantic hero. And now here she was with a man who was devoted to her and that dream of a big white wedding didn't seem so important, not compared to _who_ she was marrying. "It really doesn't, Jack," she said. "I just want to be with you."

* * *

"Take good care of her," Jack said nervously to Russel a few weeks later. The idea of leaving Laura for two weeks, even with her grandfather, made him edgy.

Russel smiled indulgently. The last eighteen months had done nothing to curb Jack's protective streak when it came to Laura. It did his heart good to know she was in such good hands. "I will," he said. "She's a Jaeger, it's about time she spent some time in the country." He would be taking care of Laura for the two weeks that they would be on their honeymoon. He had been delighted to hear of Jack and Gabrielle's impending marriage, although disappointed that they weren't having a church wedding. It would have been nice to see his only daughter wed in the town chapel but they had both insisted on a registry wedding in Sydney.

It was a very low-key event, a registry ceremony and party at Cougars, but he had never seen her happier. She and Jack were so in sync that it was easy to see why a big wedding didn't matter compared to being together. He couldn't believe he had ever thought badly of Jack; the man was perfect for her. And close to her own age, which, after Steve, was always a good thing.

And now they were off to Fiji for two weeks. _Alright for some_, Russel had thought when Gabrielle had told them. He would have loved to have the newlyweds stay at the farm, but Jack had wanted to take her somewhere special. Russel suspected he also wanted to spend as little time in Widgee as possible; for Jack, the town would always be the place that was populated by the people who had been the cause of Gabrielle's misery.

Russel looked over to where that friend of Jack's – Travis, he thought his name was – was holding Laura. Travis really didn't look like someone who Jack would be friends with, but he seemed to know how to handle Laura.

Travis reluctantly handed Laura back to Jack. He didn't see why _he_ couldn't look after the little girl while Jack and Gabrielle were away, and Jack didn't have the heart to admit that Travis was so sick he could barely look after himself, let alone a two-year-old. "Take care of yourself," Jack said. Travis _really_ didn't look well; Jack hoped he would make it to the rescheduled trial. "Take care of yourself," he said again. "Try to stay out of trouble." Travis was becoming increasingly agitated over the continually postponed trial. He was worried that his health wouldn't see him through to the trial, and Jack was worried that he might do something rash.

Travis smiled thinly. "Of course," he said. The words sounded shallow to both of them.

"I'm worry about him," Jack said to Gabrielle later on the way to the airport. "He's desperate." As an ED NUM and a trauma surgeon, they were both very familiar with the actions taken by desperate people; hell, Bart had been shot and almost died because of the actions of a desperate man.

"Don't think about it. You can't do anything for him," Gabrielle reminded him. "You don't want to spoil our honeymoon."

He squeezed her hand and smiled gratefully. It was selfish of him to be thinking about Travis on his freaking honeymoon – or close enough, anyway. "You're right," he said. "Let's go have a great time."

* * *

"No-one could ever accuse you of having bad taste," Gabrielle said, admiring the spectacular view from the luxurious beachfront chalet. The ocean was beautifully calm and sparkling blue. "I want to go swimming."

He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his head on her shoulder. "It's the same ocean that we get in Sydney," he reminded her, nuzzling her neck. God, what was it about being here with her, being married to her, that made him so much more attracted to her? "I want to consummate our marriage."

"Jack!" she admonished him with absolutely no earnestness when he unknotted the tie on her halterneck dress and letting it go so it fell down, leaving her shoulders completely bare. He started to kiss her bare skin and let his hands wander down her body, resting provocatively on her breasts, despite the fact they were standing in an open doorway that overlooked a public beach. "People can see!"

"I can rectify that," he said, and even though she had her back to him, she knew he was grinning mischievously. He swung her into his arms and, kicking the door shut behind them, carried her over to the bed. He lay her down and straddled her, then started kissing her, starting with her mouth, seeking her tongue out, kissing her hungrily, as if he'd never kissed her before, as if it was their first time together, two and a half years ago now...

He slowly moved his mouth downwards along her face and neck, his fingers trailing over her bare shoulders. She murmured her pleasure and flung her arms around his neck, running her fingers through his hair and across his neck, a sensation, she noted with delight, he was increasingly enjoying the sensation. She tried to wedge her hands between their chests so she could unbutton his shirt, to no avail, so she settled for bringing her hands under his shirt from behind, pulling the material up as she moved her hands up his back. He started to make soft whimpering noises.

He moved his mouth down to the base of her throat and collarbone, down the expanse of skin he had previously bared. Awkwardly, he reached behind him and dragged down the zip of her dress, loosening it enough so he could pull it down, first to her waist then easing it over her hips and down her legs so she was clad only in a strapless bra and panties. "Beautiful," he whispered. "So sexy."

She unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off him. You'd think by now she'd be bored of looking at him, but no. She wondered what it was about being here with him, being married to him, made her feel so much more attracted to him. "I could say the same thing right back," she said.

He resumed kissing her, taking his time as he slowly moved down, running his lips, tongue and fingers over the swell of her breasts as they emerged from her bra. Gripping his hair tighter now, she bucked against him, delighting in the feel of resistance as her body met his. "Jack," she cried his name. "Jack."

Obeying her unspoken request, he unclipped her bra, freeing her breasts from the restraint, and sucked on her nipples, first one and then the other, until they became hard in his mouth and Gabrielle was writhing against him. He kissed and caressed her breasts until they were red and marked. Well, two could play at that game. She rained kisses on his face and shoulders, bit him gently, dug her nails into his back. Grunting, he thrust his crotch against her thigh so she could feel exactly how hard he was. She grinned to herself. It gave her a massive kick to know she could still turn him on like that.

She put all her weight on one side of her body and nudged him in a motion that he knew to mean she wanted to be on top. Obliging her, he flipped them so he was on his back and she was on top of him. She ran kisses down his chest until he was bucking against her in much the same way she had done with him, and it took all her strength to keep her balance. She got to his pants and unbuttoned and unzipped them, pulling them down his legs and discarding them on the floor so he was wearing only his boxers and his erection was obvious. She kissed him through his boxers until he was crying out, begging her by way of incoherent babble to stop teasing him.

Slowly, she pulled down his boxers so he was completely naked and ran light kisses the considerable length of his erection. "Gabrielle, please..." he moaned. Flashing him a cheeky grin, she took him in her mouth, slowly taking him in until he was all the way down her throat. Massaging his balls at the same time, she began taking him in and out of her mouth, surprisingly turned on by how turned on _he_ was as he began thrusting in and out of her mouth, moaning with desire until he gripped her shoulders suddenly, arched his back, thrust hard and climaxed with a violent shudder.

She didn't move for a minute until he was lying quietly, then she padded off to the bathroom to rinse her mouth out. "You're amazing," he whispered to her before kissing her deeply. "Your turn now." She didn't protest when he flipped her onto her back and went back to kissing and caressing his way down her body. When he got to her panties, he eased them down so she was completely naked. Teasing her the same way she'd teased him, he touched her lightly in the most intimate of places until the feel of her warm wetness was driving him as crazy as it was her. Her legs were spread wide and he had an intimate view of her womanhood. "So sexy," he whispered, bending his head to her. She gasped when he first used his tongue on her and thrust her pelvis up. He grabbed her hips and used his thumbs to touch her while he used his tongue on her, devouring her in the most pleasurable of ways until she was writhing so hard that he was having trouble holding her still enough to keep at it.

Afterwards, she lay on the bed, simultaneously exhilarated and exhausted. But Jack was nowhere near finished. Kneeling between her legs, he penetrated her slightly, testing the waters until she gave her consent with her eyes and her sighs of pleasure. He grabbed her hips and pushed all the way inside her, wishing there was a way he could get in deeper. He began thrusting and she met his movements thrust for thrust. They climaxed together shortly after.

"I love you," Jack said quietly after a few minutes of lying in bed together. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me, you know that? I can't believe I found you."

"And because you had to escort your sister to something you didn't want to go to," she teased.

"Yeah, well, fate works in mysterious ways," he said. He stroked her hair. "I love you," he said. "And I intend on spending the rest of my life with you."

* * *

Ashley howled with fury when she read about Jack and Gabrielle's marriage in _The Scene_. She was so angry she couldn't even take consolation that, far from being the lavish church wedding that she'd had her own heart set on since she'd been a little girl, it had been a no-frills registry wedding. Gabrielle had married, and married way above the standard of boys that they'd grown up with – boys like Steve.

Now she had everything Ashley had always wanted – a terrific job, a gorgeous, highly respected husband, and a perfect family. Everything Ashley had always wanted... everything Gabrielle had always said she wasn't interested in. Always said she'd be happy in a country clinic with Steve by her side.

Well, now Gabrielle had Ashley's dream and Ashley had Gabrielle's... well, you couldn't exactly call it a _dream_. More like a nightmare.

_I deserve what you have_, Ashley thought bitterly. _By God, if it kills me, I'll get it_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

"Why didn't you stop him?"

"Oh, Gee, Jack, I dunno – maybe 'cos he'd already done it by the time Patrick got here. Sorry I couldn't see into the future," Mike said sarcastically in reply to Jack's question about why he didn't stop Travis from attacking Patrick. "But I bailed him out."

"Thanks."

"Glad _you_ thanked me at least. He was quite happy to rot in jail."

"You're joking. Travis? He's more homophobic than me."

Which, Mike knew, was extremely homophobic. Jack tended to disguise the fact he hated going to sports games as cultural snobbishness. "He doesn't care about anything anymore, Jack. All he wanted was to see Patrick left, now he's got that, he doesn't care. Actually, scratch that. He cares about you. Idolises you, in fact. He only let me bail him out after I pointed out that you'd be furious enough when you found out he'd gone after Patrick himself, let alone that he refused to be bailed out."

Jack raked his fingers through his hair. He should have known better than to expect Travis to stay out of trouble. Actually, he wouldn't have put it past Travis to wait until Jack was on his honeymoon to go after Patrick himself. "I'll talk to him," he said.

"Jack, I don't think it's going to make a difference. He's dying. He may even die before they can get him to court." Which, they both knew, could be a good thing. Travis's health was in no state to be in jail, and the experience would be so traumatic for him. And of course it was ironic that if Travis hadn't been dying, he wouldn't have been desperate enough to go after Patrick himself, and he wouldn't be looking at jail right now.

"Whatever. I'm still going to talk to him."

On his way to the ED, he was so distracted that he wasn't looking and ran straight into someone. "Ooof, sorry," he said, bringing his arm around her waist to steady her.

"Thanks," she said. She looked up at him. "Oooh, I know you!" she said. "You were in _The Scene_," she added when she saw the look of confusion on his face.

"That would be me," he said drily. What had started as a means to piss Bianca Frost off and get his name noticed by senior surgeons had ended with a degree of fame that he didn't particularly like.

"You don't like being well-known?" she asked. "That's unusual for a surgeon."

"I'm not like most surgeons. I would be quite happy to go home to my wife."

"Gabrielle, right?" Jack nodded. "She's my boss, I think. I've been working in the ED while she was away. I don't know if I'm still needed."

"That depends. What do you think of Frank Campion?"

"He's a good doctor. An excellent doctor, actually. Can be a bit cranky sometimes but not nearly as bad as everyone said."

Jack laughed at that. It was as good an assessment of Frank as any other. "If you get on OK with Frank, then I'll sure there's a job for you. Gabby's always after good nurses who can get along with Frank. Actually, that's how she got her position in the first place. The only person who was willing to take on the position was a twenty-four-year-old from a small country hospital with no official administrative duties."

"Official?"

"I know her from way back, met her in the tiny town she comes from, actually – it's just this side of the Victorian border. She pretty much ran the nursing staff, it just wasn't on the books."

She made a face in confusion. "Twenty-four? But she would have only finished nursing school – "

"At twenty-one yeah. It was a combination of hospitals like that just being so short-staffed and her being very good at her job. It was what attracted me to her. I was never interested in dating someone younger than me until I met her. She's very mature for her age."

"You sound like you think the world of her."

"I wouldn't have married her if I wasn't. But you have me at a disadvantage," Jack said. "You seem to know a lot about me and I don't even know you're name."

"It's Rachel. Rachel Simms."

"Well, Rachel Simms, since you seem to be heading in the same direction as me, I'll introduce you to Gabrielle myself."

Jack walked Rachel to the ED and was just about to introduce her to Gabrielle when a security officer interrupted them. "Doctor Quade, Nurse Quade," he directed them. "We have a slight problem."

Jack frowned. In his tumultuous life, 'small problem' was rarely a good thing. "What kind of _'small problem'_?" he asked.

"We have a woman trying to see your daughter, claiming she's an old friend, but she wouldn't give her name." The security officer gestured to another officer, who was holding a woman who Jack guessed to be in her early-to-mid thirties by the arm. The woman was scowling and looked somewhat unkempt. "Do you know her?" the guard asked.

Jack curled up his lip in disgust. She was certainly no-one that he knew. Even his father had better taste than that. In fact, even Travis, as sick as he was, looked better than this woman. Skin that had that leathery look from far too much time in the sun, hair that looked like it hadn't had a decent treatment since the start of the decade and a sullen expression that belied her thirtysomething years. "No idea," Jack said. Gabrielle nodded her concurrence.

"She says she knows you –" the guard nodded at Gabrielle " – from way back."

Gabrielle smirked at that. "Then clearly she didn't do her research, because I lived in a very small town until I came to Sydney two years ago. I knew everyone and I don't – " Something made her stop and stare at the woman a little closer. No wonder she hadn't recognised her. Wherever she had been, she hadn't had access to even the beauty facilities that were available in Widgee, because her once-overdone-platinum hair was limp with at least two inches of regrowth. And she had always loved a tan, but two years had aged her ten. And clearly she had no-one to impress, because she had put on a good ten kilograms. If Gabrielle wasn't so furious to find her here, trying to get to Laura, she would have felt sorry for her former rival. "Ashley," she said through clenched teeth. "What the _fuck_ are you doing here?"

Ashley glowered at Gabrielle. Despite the drab uniform she was in, the woman looked radiant. _Well, I'd be radiant too, if I had a hunky surgeon for a husband_, she thought bitterly. She noticed the way Jack, standing slightly behind her, threaded fingers on his ring hand through hers in such a way that both rings were obviously on display. _That's quite a rock_. "I hear you got married," she said, her voice poisonously sweet. "I must have missed my invitation."

Jack was set to step forward, but Gabrielle squeezed his hand tightly in restraint. "You're not welcome here, Ashley," she said. She looked Ashley over in more detail this time. The woman had really come down in the world. Hers had always been a trashy, overdone beauty – if you could call it that – rather than a classy one, but she had lost even that. Gabrielle wondered if she and Steve were together; the last Julia had heard of them, they had left town together. Gabrielle found herself not caring, beyond being angry that Ashley dare try and lay a hand on her daughter.

Ashley glared even more hatefully at Gabrielle. _I'm not welcome here? She didn't even want to _come_ to Sydney when I did. I deserve it more then she does_. Seeing the life Gabrielle lived with her own eyes, in such an important, major hospital, seeing Jack in the flesh – even better-looking then she remembered, even better-looking than the magazine pictures showed – made her jealousy bubble over even more. It wasn't fair! And now she had been hauled down to the ED like some common criminal for wanting to see the little girl that she and Steve had just as good a claim to as Jack and Gabrielle. "We have just as good a claim to her as you do," she spat.

She had meant to put fear in Gabrielle's heart, but instead, she sparked Jack's fury. Abandoning Gabrielle's hand, he lunged towards Ashley. "You say that again and I will rip out your fucking heart – that is, if you had one in the first place," he snarled, his eyes flashing with such hatred that Ashley blanched and for half a second, she was glad he had chosen Gabrielle if he had this kind of temper. Then he remembered that he was displaying it on Gabrielle's behalf, and that just made her even more resentful.

"You won't be so high-and-mighty after a full blood test," she challenged recklessly.

She started to gasp for air as Jack's hand closed around her throat. Gabrielle screamed out for him to stop, that she wasn't worth it, and after a few seconds he released his grip, grabbing her arm instead, hard enough to leave a nasty bruise the next day. Jack didn't look at her; instead, he fired directions at the guards. "Get her the fuck off hospital grounds," he said. "I don't want to see her again even if she has multi fucking organ failure." And while everyone knew that he couldn't exactly _stop_ any ambulance from bringing in someone in such a state, in that moment, some people thought that maybe he could.

"You'll regret this!" Ashley screamed at him. "Everyone knows you're just her step-father."

"Which is a damn sight more than you'll ever be," Jack yelled back, although he took no delight in realising he'd hit a nerve. Ashley was unmarried. Clearly, Steve had either lost interest in her or didn't respect her enough to marry more. _Probably a bit of both_. He tried not to be embarrassed about Ashley's outburst. In one thing, she was right; it was common, if unspoken, knowledge that he wasn't Laura's biological father, which put him in a weird no-man's land between father and step-father. It was just that he hated to be reminded of it, let alone have it thrown in his face like that, let alone in front of so many people that he _worked_ with, for Christ sake's.

Well, he wouldn't worry about that now. He turned to Gabrielle. "I'm just about done, why don't I pick up Laura and wait for you?" He still had a few hours to go but had no intention of leaving Laura up in the crèche without either he or Gabrielle keeping an eye out on her.

"You sure? I'll be a while."

"It's alright, I have a book."

"You mean a doorstop," she teased. He poked his tongue out at her. They were back to the playful banter that characterised their relationship.

He picked Laura up and took her to the tea-room of the ED. Rachel took her break to find him watching Laura and not paying much attention to his book – as, Gabrielle had said, a doorstop. "What did she mean – about having as good a claim to her – and you being her step-father?" Rachel asked, then she realised what a personal question it was. "Sorry, it's none of my business."

"It's OK. Most people know the story anyway – or parts of it." And he found himself telling her about his history with Gabrielle, right back to the day he had first met her three years ago. He didn't mention Steve by name, but he found Rachel easy to talk to and didn't leave much out. Well, his abuse, but not much else. "I never thought we'd hear from either of them again. They're hardly the type to want kids. I don't think Ashley has any interest in Laura for her own self, but because she symbolises everything she wants that Gabrielle has."

"Do you think that his guy – "

"Will ever come back? I doubt it. And what's he going to do if he does? Admit that he put my name on her birth certificate when he knew full well that he was the father – or at least he knew that there was a possibility. I know the kind of man he is. He didn't want anything to do with Laura then, and I doubt he'll ever change. God knows, my dad never did and _he_ at least paid child support for eighteen months. Besides," Jack said with a rueful laugh, "the last time we met, I broke his nose. I doubt he'll be back for seconds anytime soon."

* * *

"You stupid bloody idiot!" Steve raged at Ashley in their dingy motel room. "What did you think they were going to do, just hand Laura over to someone who looked like you?" He eyed Ashley critically. She hadn't had her hair treated in God knew when – Steve didn't understand why she didn't just let it go back to her mousy brown. Sure, it wasn't as flashy as the platinum blond she preferred, but it was a sight classier than faded platinum with several inches of mousy brown roots. And her skin – she had always loved to tan, and it was starting to show. She was twenty-six, and looked years older. She looked as old as him, really. He thought about the pictures he'd seen of Gabrielle in that magazine. She definitely had a matronly, authoritive look about her – she always had, and having Laura and taking up such a position of authority and responsibility, she had it more so – but still had the glow of youth about her. No-one would mistake her for being under thirty, which was a mistake that could easily be made with Ashley.

Ashley glared sullenly at Steve. Now that they were in Sydney, a city she had dreamed of visiting – no, _living _in – since as long as she could remember, the reality was a far cry from her fantasy. This cheap motel was nothing on the beachside mansion she had dreamed of, and unemployment benefits could hardly support the lifestyle she had fancied herself living. And Steve – well, what could be said about Steve that hadn't already been said before?

She considered it entirely her own doing that they were in Sydney; she wasn't to know that Steve had been more cut than he would ever admit to himself, let alone Ashley, over Gabrielle's marriage and the knowledge that Laura was the only child he would ever have. Ashley hadn't been lying when she said she couldn't have children; while they would continue to place the blame on each other for the Chlamydia, the upshot was that neither of them would have any more children.

This had made Ashley particularly bitter. Not that she had ever had an inclination towards children – she had no maternal instinct in her singularly selfish body, with nursing being a thoroughly unsuitable career for her to go into – but she had always felt she had the right to choose. Now she had no right. No-one to follow her in the world and continue her genes, the only real shot at immortality anyone really has. At least Steve, she often thought bitterly, had Laura, for all that he had spent the first two years of her life pretending Laura didn't exist and feeling pleased that he had so patly foisted her onto another man. Steve, however, was more reflective. Like Ashley, he had never had an inclination towards children – like Ashley, too fundamentally selfish without a paternal bone in his body. But knowing that Laura was the only child he had ever had – well, that had made him stop and think, in one of the few sober moments that he had.

Laura would be his only child, and he had given her away, pleased at the time that he had gotten off scot-free with such a blatant lie. Well, not exactly scot-free; Julia Croft had seen him run out of town, hadn't she? And Gabrielle, sweet, caring, doting Gabrielle, had married someone else. The two things he had cherished the most, his job and Gabrielle, were lost to him forever. And the child he had never wanted, the only child he would ever have now, belonged to someone else.

_No, she doesn't_, Steve reminded himself. Not in blood. Hadn't Gabrielle insisted so many times that Laura could only be his? That the date of her conception was weeks before she had met Jack, and anyway, that Jack had been militant about using a condom? At the time, Steve had been determined not to hear her, but now – Now he knew he had his flesh and blood out there, in genes if not in law, and that Gabrielle was too honest to deny that. Jack could have more children; Steve couldn't. That gave him greater rights to Laura, as far as he was concerned.

And so he had allowed Ashley to nag him into coming to Sydney. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do, except he knew it wouldn't be going to the crèche and attempting to see Laura. Did Ashley _really_ think the staff were just going to hand her over to someone they didn't know? Especially with _both_ parents (at least as far as the law was concerned) on staff? Especially when she looked like a worn-out tramp. Which, Steve thought harshly, wasn't that far off from what she actually was.

"We have just as much claim to her as they do," Ashley said sullenly, repeating her argument.

"No, we don't," Steve said through gritted teeth. He had been over this before, only Ashley seemed determined to believe her own version of the truth. "Even if Jack _was_ only her step-father – and I'm talking in the eyes of the law, sweetheart, not DNA, d'you think you can get that through your thick skull this time – that puts him above _you_. And How many courts do you think there are who will say we have just as much standing in the community as we do?"

Ashley just glared sullenly. She was well aware that Gabrielle had more standing in the community then she did. She was aware of it every second of every day. And she was well aware that Steve had no intention of ever marrying her – not even if it gave him a better claim on Laura. "Then what are you going to do?" she asked.

"I don't know. But it's got to be better then your stupid plan."

He settled down with a microwave dinner and a bottle of scotch and leafed through the employment pages. Nothing caught his attention, not that he had much interest in working in a major hospital with a bunch of surgical snobs who thought they were so much better than a mere country physician. And then it leaped out at him. An Emergency Registrar required for All Saints Western General. Vaguely, Steve recalled that the hospital had lost an ED physician a few months ago – hit and run accident, he believed. It had only even registered on his radar because he knew Gabrielle was the NUM at that ED.

Now it seemed to be a godsend. Minus the part about the guy dying, of course. But he was dead now, he wasn't likely to care, and this was a golden opportunity.

He put his glass down. He needed to sober up and polish up his résumé.

* * *

Jack didn't bother to brush back the tears. He knew Travis was on death's door, knew he should let him go quietly, but he was the only person who had ever truly understood what he had gone through with Patrick. Not even Gabrielle, who loved him and who had some idea of what it was like to be in an abusive relationship, would ever understand him the way Travis did. Travis was like the brother he had never had.

And now he was dying and Jack was struggling to let him go. Every bit of professionalism rallied to tell him what was the right thing to do; that pressuring Travis to cling on was selfish, that the guy was in a lot of pain with poor quality of life and that he had the right to go; but his emotions got the better of his professionalism and he wept for the only person who had ever truly understood him; a man who had been robbed of so much that simply seeing Jack, Gabrielle and Laura together were the best things that had ever happened to him.

"Hey," Travis said gently, and his voice was void of the bitterness and anger that had inflected it for as long as Jack had known him. He had killed Patrick, stopped him from doing to anyone else who he had done to him and Jack and God knew who else, and if there was a higher power out there, Travis knew that They weren't going to judge him for it. His whole life had been full of one kind of pain or another, and now he just felt at peace. "It's OK." In a motion that neither homophobic man would have allowed in any other circumstances, he reached up to touch Jack's cheek, feeling a mixture of guilt that Jack was crying over him and awe that he actually meant enough to someone that they _would_ cry over him. "I want to ask you a favour."

"Anything."

"Gabrielle's pregnant, isn't she?" Jack looked surprised, and Travis smiled at that. Being at peace over Patrick's death and his own impending death had made him see things a lot clearly, notice details that he had been too self absorbed and full of hate to notice before, and one of them was that Jack's happiness, which he had been desperately trying to hide in the same way he had tried to hide his happiness in light of Zoe's loss, stemmed from more than simply being a newlywed."If it's a boy – " Travis struggled to breathe, hating his failing body for not being able to get the words out. "If it's a boy –" he tried again.

Jack understood what he was trying to say. Travis wanted to know that someday he would have a namesake out there who would be protected by parents as ferocious as lions. It was more than he had ever had, and the closest he would ever have to immortality. "Of course," he said, wishing he had thought of it before. "And I'll make sure he knows what an amazing person you were. I'll make something up if I have to," he added.

Travis laughed softly, for all the effort that it took to do so. "Stay with me," he asked, not needing to add the words, _to the death_.

"Of course_,_" Jack said. _To the death_.

Later that night, in the sanctuary of his home, Jack curled up against Gabrielle, her back pressed against his chest, his hands against her still-flat stomach, feeling a contour that may or may not exist solely in his imagination. It hadn't taken long for her to become pregnant, which hadn't exactly surprised him. It had taken even less with Charlotte. Knowing his baby was growing inside her – he made no distinction between Laura and this baby, Laura was no less 'his' because of it, no matter what people might say, but he had never known Laura until she was six months old and had missed her pregnancy and early months – brought him a peace that nothing else in his life had. But it had also made him realise how little Travis had in his life and he wanted to remember him. The only problem, in his mind, was running it past Gabrielle, who no doubt had her heart set on naming any sons they had after her dad or brother. He knew _he _would certainly be a little put out if Gabrielle had wanted to name their second daughter after someone she had only known for a few months when he already had his heart set on Rebecca. "Babe, I was thinking. I mean, it's something Travis asked me."

"I thought of that a while ago, Jack," Gabrielle, a little surprised that Jack himself hadn't thought of it. But then, Jack had been reluctant to admit, even in the fact of overwhelming medical evidence, that Travis was dying, and was going to die after a life, short as it had been, filled with pain and neglect, so it was really no wonder that he hadn't thought of it. To think about something like that was to acknowledge that Travis would never have children of his own.

Jack knew by this point he shouldn't be surprised that Gabrielle knew what was best for him longer before he knew it for himself – after all, hadn't he often been the same when it came to what was best for her? – but still... "You have?" he asked.

"Yeah. I spoke to him a few times when you weren't there. He was never that comfortable around me, poor guy, but it was so obvious how much it meant to him that you were happy. I think knowing that meant more to him then knowing Patrick couldn't hurt anyone anymore."

"Could fooled me," Jack said gruffly, feigning disbelief in this sentient so he could hide how touched he was knowing Travis felt like that.

_Yeah, right_, Gabrielle thought. She knew Travis meant far more to Jack than he would ever admit. He wanted to name their son after him, didn't he? "Well, he did," he said. "And I know he meant a lot to you to. I figured you'd want to name our son after him – if we have one," she added playfully. Thankgod Jack wasn't one of those men who put so much stock in having a son. A man who put so much stock in a daughter who wasn't even his wasn't likely to care _what_ gender his kids were. Although it would be kind of a hoot to see how Ned reacted should he be 'blessed' with a legitimate grandson.

"Won't your dad and Ben be upset?"

"I'll deal with them. I'll tell then it's one of your brother's names. It's not like we ever see them for them to know it's a lie."

Jack chuckled at that. His sweet, insightful Gabrielle who sometimes seemed several paces ahead of him when it came to his own mind. "I love you," he whispered, and he held her tighter.

* * *

"What?" Jack asked suspiciously when Rachel had given up all pretence of eating her lunch and was just watching him and Laura – or, rather, him while he was reading to Laura.

"I was just thinking I thought men like you were works of fiction," Rachel mused. Part of her wished he hadn't noticed her watching him, because she was enjoying his version of _A Little Princess _much more than the one her mother had read to her. All in all, she quite enjoying the occasions when she was in the tea-room at the same time as Jack was there, either on a break or waiting for Gabrielle. Watching him dote on Laura was enchanting. Especially when he did it while reading a doorstop of a book at the same time. Paternal _and_ smart. If he wasn't married and so obviously, disgustingly in love, she would be falling for him herself. "You must get loads of women coming onto you."

Jack made a face. "More than I would have thought possible. I swear, women seem to be more interested in me since I got married."

Rachel had to laugh at that. For all that he had so obviously led a tough life, Jack could be amazingly naive at times. It simply didn't occur to him why women might want a good-looking, devoted family man, to hell with whatever promises he had made to someone else. But then, maybe it was that tough life that had made him such a devoted family man. She'd picked up from him to know that his father had cheated a lot, so he had to have seen what kind of heartache that led to.

An alarm went off and moments later, Zoe rushed in. "Look, Jack, I know you're not even on duty, but –"

"Can't sorry," Jack said abruptly. He was well aware that since Sean had died, the ED had struggled with all the demands that their patients put on them, but while Laura was under his watch, the whole ED could go under for all he cared. He felt for Zoe and the position she was in, trying to juggle an understaffed ED as well as her own grief, but his daughter was more important to him.

"I'll watch her," Rachel offered. Jack looked at her suspiciously. "I'm a registered nurse, Jack, I think I can keep an eye on a baby."

Jack contemplated it for a few seconds. "Alright," he said, and grudgingly handed Laura over as if Rachel was an inexperienced teenage baby-sitter and not an RN that his own wife regarded highly. "Whatever happened to that new registrar you were supposed to get?" he asked as he followed Zoe to the most pressing emergency, a man who had embedded himself on a chainsaw. "I saw a massive stack of résumés on Frank's desk."

Zoe made a face that disguised her wry smile; she was used to Jack calling it Frank's desk when something went wrong and her desk when things ran smoothly. Which, truth be told, was fairly close to the truth. "He hasn't found anyone he likes."

"One of them went to Harvard."

"Yes, but Bart didn't," she said dryly, which was really the crux of the problem. There was no money in the budget – in part thanks to her own promotion, she was well aware – to take on a new resident once Bart finished his internship. You'd think Oliver Marone would be happy to let them hire a resident instead of a registrar – cheaper – but apparently not. And naturally, just to make her already-understaffed day worse, Frank was ensconced with Bart, having him sit in on interview after interview so he would get a taste for what it was like.

Damnit, she wished he would just hire someone and get it over with. He was holding onto his precious Bart tighter than she was her memories of Sean. You'd think if _she_ could get over that enough to see the necessity of hiring a new registrar, he could, too.

Back in the tea-room, Rachel was too preoccupied with Laura to notice the door opening. Besides, the staff came in and out all the time, for breaks, at the beginning and end of their shifts, to grab a coffee in a comparatively quiet moment. So she didn't pay any attention until she heard a deep male voice ask, "Any chance I could grab a cup of tea?"

She looked up to see a very good-looking man standing in the doorway, albeit one who had to be in his mid-thirties. Dark good-looks, solid frame, just enough stubble to be sexy without looking scruffy. Way too old for her, but that didn't mean a girl couldn't look. "Right over there," she said. "Are you a locum?" she asked, judging for his free dress that he wasn't a nurse – besides, it would be a shame to put such a man in a nurse's uniform – and he knew all the doctors who worked in the ED permanently, as well as the specialists who frequented here by dint of the fact they could stand Frank better than others.

"With any luck, no. I'm here for the registrar's position," he said, flashing a sexy smile.

"Good luck with that," Rachel said with a wry smile. "The boss has his heart set on his protégé now that he's almost finished his internship, but there's no money in the budget for a resident _and_ a registrar. He's already worked his way through a stack of résumés as thick as the white pages."

_The indomitable Frank Campion_, Steve thought. While he had never had an interest of working in a city, it hadn't taken much research to learn that Frank was equal parts brilliant physician, bully and tyrant. Well, he had run into plenty of those in his life. He was more interested in how Gabrielle would react to seeing him here. If she was so happy, surely she wouldn't be _that_ upset to see him? It had been so long ago, and he hadn't hurt her _that_ badly, had he? His memory was a bit foggy on that. At any rate, she had certainly moved up in the world, and she couldn't exactly begrudge him a job, could she?

Besides, that wasn't his primary reason for coming.

He spied the child in Rachel's lap and knew instantly that this was Laura. God knew, he had pored over her picture in _The Scene_ enough times, though she looked a fair bit older here. Well, that would make sense. Her last appearance had been more than six months ago, and Laura was at an age where even a month could make a big difference in her growth. "Your daughter?" he asked, knowing full well that she wasn't.

Rachel laughed. "I wish," she said. "Nope, she belongs to the most disgustingly in love couple I know. You just missed her father, actually. He was waiting for his wife to finish but they needed him. I'm Rachel, by the way."

"Steve. Steve Taylor." He sat down besides Rachel and, with a suitable show of tentativeness, stroked Laura's blond hair, adorned with pink ribbons. Laura was at an age where she was less cautious about strangers and more interested in new things, and she smiled at Steve, her green eyes flashing. _You're going to be a beauty, just like your grandmother_, Steve thought. "What a beautiful child," he murmured.

"You should see her aunt – Jack's dad," Rachel said, although she knew full well that Rebecca wasn't Laura's biological aunt. "Blond hair, green eyes, this all-Australian Jennifer Hawkins gorgeousness. I reckon she's going to grow up exactly the same."

Steve felt a pang in his chest. He was well aware that Rebecca's blond was a green-eyed blond – he had said to all and sundry that Laura clearly took after the woman – and it was really no wonder that people assumed that Laura got her looks from Rebecca. And it pained him more than he cared to admit that Laura looked nothing like him, from her fair skin to her blond hair to her green eyes. He would have loved a boy to follow after him. A tall, dark, strapping-boy who loved to play football and bond with his old man down at the pub at the end of the day.

"Beautiful," he said again.

Rachel mistook the note of regret in Steve's voice – naturally, as she had no idea who she was. "You got any kids of your own?" she asked.

"Nope. Never found the right woman." _Well, actually, I did, and I was too busy drinking to appreciate her_. What was it Rachel had said? That they were disgustingly in love? He might not be able to win Gabrielle back, but he had to have _some_ right to his daughter – the only child he had ever had.

In the last two weeks, he had sobered up as much as he could – which meant down to half a bottle of scotch each day – and he still scrubbed up quite well, despite the fact he was heading towards forty and not as fit as he used to be. He knew he still cut a good figure, and regardless of the reason, his long list of jobs in remote regions looked impressive, like he was a man who cared more for helping people in remote areas than the glory which came with a more prestigious position. And a long time ago, he had gotten very good marks in medical school. Not quite the grades that AUMEL prat Gabrielle had married, to be sure, but nothing to be sniffed at, either. He hadn't been all that surprised when Zoe Gallagher had called him to arrange an interview.

So here he was, in the same room as his daughter, with nothing but a slip of a nurse in between them. For a second, he considered snatching Laura and running, then decided against it. As Ashley had discovered to her detriment, Laura Jaeger – Quade, now – was one of the most beloved of the staff's children in the entire hospital. The staff, doctors, orderlies and security alike, were hardly going to let him just run off with her.

Fate intervened and Zoe poked her head around the door. "Rachel, Gabrielle needs you," she said. She looked directly at Steve. "You must be Doctor Taylor," she said, taking a few steps towards him and shaking his hand briefly. "I'm Zoe Gallagher, I'm the one you spoke to."

"Please to meet you," Steve said smartly, with just the right amount of subservience.

"Look, I'm sorry, I know you have an interview but it's chaos right now. If you'd like to go and get a coffee or something...?" she suggested hopefully. She turned to Rachel. "Gabrielle really needs you," she said, giving an unspoken apology for having to cut her lunch break short.

"Not unless you want to give Jack back," Rachel said apologetically. "I told him I'd watch Laura."

"I can do that," Steve offered, careful not to look to eager – just eager enough as to appear he wanted to help.

Zoe looked doubtful. "I don't think so, Jack and Gabrielle are quite protective of her." She thought for a second. Between the two of them, Jack was needed more than Rachel and she decided Rachel could stay put.

She was about to say so when Steve interjected. "It's really no trouble. What do you think I'm going to do, run off with the kid?" he asked, smiling charmingly while knowing full well that this was _exactly_ what Jack and Gabrielle were worried about since Ashley had showed up trying to get access to Laura. _Stupid girl_, Steve thought again angrily. Surely Ashley should have known that he at least had a wedge he could use against Gabrielle and Jack whereas Ashley had no status at all.

Zoe paused for a few seconds, then decided that of the two evils, it was better to have Steve watch over Laura then leave Rachel when she was needed or call Jack back when he was needed even more. Steve had a point; it wasn't like he was going to run off with Laura, and besides, she was so well-known to all the staff that she would be immediately recognised. And besides, this wasn't that trashy, bitter woman that Gabrielle had known again; this was a doctor with an impressive résumé who had a confirmed interview for a position here. "OK," she said cautiously. "But don't go anywhere. Jack and Gabrielle will flip out if they come in and find Laura's not here." And with that, she and Rachel left, closing the door behind them, leaving Steve alone with Laura.

_Laura. His daughter_. Steve looked at the adorable two-year-old with wonder. While he would have preferred a son to carry on his name, a man couldn't help but be proud of such an exquisite creature that he could call his own. He knew he didn't have much time – knew it was a matter of minutes, or even seconds, before Zoe or Rachel mentioned to either Gabrielle or Jack that they had left Laura with the would-be interviewee, Steve Taylor – they wouldn't even have to mention his last name, his first would be enough to get their interest piqued – and it would be all over.

He picked up the little girl and she looked at him with interest, smiled, and reached out her small fist to touch his stubble. Steve took this as a sign of interest, not from a small child's inquisitiveness but out of some kind of bond between them. He was, after all, her father, and she was the only child that he would ever have. "Do you know who I am?" he asked. He asked it rhetorically, sure that Laura lacked the intelligence and awareness to understand what he had just said, so he was surprised when she shook her head in a cute, tiny-girl way. "I'm your father," he said proudly. "Your real father."

Laura looked at him in confusion, then her face scrunched up in an expression of distress and almost immediately, she started to wail. "_DADDY!_" she screamed. "_DADDYDADDYDADDY!_"

Steve tried to make her be quiet, tried to hush her with soothing words and even put his hand over her, but Laura just screamed louder. Within seconds Jack stormed through the doors and recognised Steve immediately. He snatched Laura from Steve arms and looked as if he would break the older man's nose again if it didn't require having to put Laura down in order to do it. Laura immediately wrapped her little arms around Jack's neck as far as they would go and the same with her legs around his waist – although more around his ribs – burying her little face in his shoulder, sobbing loudly, terrified. "What the _fuck_ are you doing here?" he demanded.

Zoe raced in after him. "Jack, I'm sorry, it seemed like the best thing to do. I needed Rachel and – " she stopped dead, looking at the two men in confusion. There was an ugly look of hatred of Jack's face. Steve wasn't a stranger to him. "What's going on?" she asked Jack. She looked suspiciously at Steve. There was clearly a history between them, and an unpleasant one at that. Had Steve Taylor engineered an interview so he could be close to Jack – and Laura? Coming so fast on the heels of that friend – no, not friend – of Gabrielle's showing up, it seemed to co-incidental to be co-incidence. With the quick-thinking that had seen her rise so quickly through the ranks of the medical community, she realised who Steve Taylor was. Steve, the man who had ruined Gabrielle's life and walked away without a second thought as to what would have happened to her if Jack hadn't been there to pick up the pieces. Steve, who hadn't given a crap that Laura would be fatherless. Laura, who through no effort of Steve's – in fact, despite his best efforts to the contrary – now had a happy family with a brother or sister on the way.

"I suggest," she said coolly, the anger and authority in her voice making her seem considerable bigger than she was, taking in for the first time that his nose was on a crooked angle, like it had been broken badly and hadn't been set properly, "that if you are who you think you are, then you get the hell out of the hospital before I take Laura from Jack and free him to break your nose again." For a second Steve glared at Zoe, thinking that she was the city version of that uppity bitch Julia Croft.

Just then, Gabrielle came in. She'd heard Laura scream at the same time as Jack, but Jack had been far freer then she had been to dash to the tea-room, as she had been applying pressure on someone's wound, preventing them from bleeding out. She grasped the frame of the door when she saw Steve, shocked almost out of her mind. "Steve?" she asked dumbly. Steve, who had slept with her best friend and God knew who else. Steve, who had given her Chlamydia, gotten her pregnant and told anyone who would listen that she was a slut and that there was no way it was his. Steve, who had tried to beat her into a miscarriage, then butchered her out of a combination of drunkenness and spite and refused to put a cent towards Laura's welfare. Steve, who had ruined her life because of his own selfishness and refusal to acknowledge his responsibilities.

Steve was fortunate that Jack's attention was diverted to Gabrielle, who looked like she was about to pass out. "Jack," Zoe said quietly, holding out her arms slightly for Laura. Jack handed her over and in a flash had scooted around behind Gabrielle, his arms around her waist, supporting her both physically and emotionally.

Zoe looked directly at Steve, and although Steve was a good fifteen centimetres taller and thirty kilograms heavier, she had a strength and authority in her posture and voice that Steve would never possess. "You have a minute before I call security," she told him simply.

Steve ignored her. "I came to see my daughter," he told Jack, a dangerous glint in his eyes. He had noticed immediately that Gabrielle was pregnant. Well, Quade had his own kid now – or would, in a few month's time – he could relinquish his claim on Laura. If he wanted to get in a fight over it, well, they both knew the value of DNA.

"Fuck you," Jack snarled, looking every inch the lioness over its cub that Travis had thought of him as. He turned to Zoe. "Can you please take Laura and Gabrielle to your office?" he asked quietly, the tone her used for her much more civilised than the one he had used for Steve. Zoe was only too happy to take Laura off him again and lead Gabrielle into the office they shared. If this was going to be a turf war between two alpha-males, Zoe wanted no part in it. Although she didn't think much of Steve's chances. Steve might be an alpha male, but Jack was like a lion or brown bear when it came to Laura.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Jack snarled at him when Zoe and Gabrielle were gone. Dear God, Steve couldn't possibly trying to be claiming Laura after all this time? The thought was as much a kick in the guts as if Steve was trying to claim any biological children that he might have.

"I thought it was obvious," Steve drawled, pleased that he had Jack on the defensive.

"You touch Laura again, you come anywhere near us or this hospital and I swear to God I will break your fucking neck so it matches your nose," Jack said. "Which, by the way, looks like you had a bad surgeon fix it up," he couldn't resist adding.

Steve scowled at that. He had thought so himself, but he hadn't been in a position to ask for a better physician, let alone a surgeon; doctors weren't exactly a dime a dozen where he came from. "I have rights," he insisted.

"Rights?" Jack repeated incredulously. "I think you forfeited any _rights_ when you tried to beat her into a miscarriage. Or how about when you put my name in the birth certificate? I suppose that's _one_ good thing you did by that." Although Jack wasn't sure how much credit Steve got for selfish actions that had just happened to work out well for him and Gabrielle.

Steve squirmed. He didn't like to be reminded of what he had done. It had seemed so important at the time when he'd been drunk and had the rest of his life ahead of him to have children when he was ready, but now... "Please," he said, the word sounded awkward on his tongue. Steve wasn't used to pleading, or being humble. "I – can't – have – children," he admitted. "Chlamydia."

"I know. You gave it to Gabrielle, remember?"

"Ashley gave it to _me_," he insisted, although there was no way of proving that. God knew, Ashley hadn't been the only one.

"I don't care and I can't believe I'm still talking to you. Get the fuck out."

"Jack, please. Gabrielle's pregnant, yeah?" Jack's eyes flashed dangerously, as if Gabrielle's pregnancy was a sacrilege that Steve was not allowed to talk about. "You – can – have other children. Laura's – it – for me," he said haltingly.

"No, she's not. Laura's mine. You don't come into it."

"I'll fight you on this," Steve promised. It was all Jack could take. He clenched his fist and went to take a swing at Steve. Steve stumbled awkwardly out of Jack's way. "OK, OK," he said. "I'm going. But this isn't the last of it – I promise you that." And with that, Steve stumbled out of the tea-room and out of the ED.

"Frank," Jack said to Frank when he emerged from the ED, "I'm taking Gabrielle home." It was a direction, not a request, regardless of how it was worded. Frank nodded silently. Gabrielle was in no position to work, anyway. Jack retrieved Gabrielle and Laura from the office and lead them both to his car.

"Jack, Gabrielle, wait up!" they heard Zoe call after them as they crossed the staff carpark. "Hey, guys, I have something to give you." Jack reluctantly ceased the fast pace that he was escorting both his 'girls' at to wait for Zoe to catch up. She was a friend and ally, they should hear her out. "Here, this might help," she said, handing them a card. "He's one of the best family lawyers in the state. AUMEL boy like you, Jack," she added.

Jack took the card off her. _Peter Hutchinson_. He remembered his sister, who was studying law, mentioning him – and she wasn't the least bit interested in family law, so he _had_ to be good. "Thanks," he said. Then the bizarreness of Zoe having such information struck him, and he asked her about it.

"I was trying to find my brother," she admitted. "All I could get was that he'd been adopted. I spent ten thousand dollars to find out that DOCS is pretty reluctant to break up a happy family," she added. Her voice was a combination of sadness and reassurance that whatever Steve was up to, he was unlikely to get far with it.

"Thankyou," Jack said, and impulsively he leaned over to kiss Zoe on the cheek. She had turned out to be a good ally; it was such a shame that for all the heart she had, she had suffered so much loss when it came to her loved ones.

He took Gabrielle home, who insisted that Laura was not to leave her sight. Jack wasn't inclined to argue with her, despite the excellent security system he'd had installed into Gabrielle's house. Steve would have to come in with a bulldozer if he wanted to get in. "What's going to happen Jack?" she asked tearfully later on that evening.

Jack retrieved copies of Laura's birth certificate and his marriage certificate. "See these?" he asked. Gabrielle nodded. "These say that you and Laura are mine, and I'm highly possessive of my things." Ordinarily, Gabrielle would have taken offense to Jack's possessiveness, but now it was exactly the right note to hit. "Besides, you forget how hard the law comes down on people who touch other people's kids. Especially babies. Let's see Steve take on me, DOCS _and_ the family law court."

He waited for Gabrielle to fall asleep, and took Laura out of her crib. The little girl was still wide awake, but silent. He had no idea how much Laura had understood of Steve's proclamation of parenthood, but he had a high regard for her intelligence, and who knew what children picked up when they were very young? "You need to know that you have two dads," he explained as simply as he could. "When you were born, your other dad didn't want you and I wanted you _so much_ that it hurt. So he said I could have you. And now he's changed his mind. But I'm not going to let him have you. You're mine now, and no-one's going to take you away from me."

* * *

Following Gabrielle was easy enough, and Steve tracked Gabrielle back to her house a few days later. Gabrielle blanched when she opened the door to see him, then felt relief that Rebecca had taken Laura for the day. "Leave," she told him coldly.

"I want to see Laura," Steve said.

"She's with her aunt."

"You don't have a sister."

"Jack does."

Steve scowled at that. What _was_ it with those two? They both knew Jack wasn't Laura's father; Gabrielle had insisted that enough times when she had first told Steve about her pregnancy. "We all know he's not really her father."

"Yeah? I have a birth certificate that says different," she challenged. "One that _you_ signed."

Steve frowned. Whatever happened to the obliging, compliant Gabrielle that he had loved? "But we all know that's not true in fact," he insisted.

"Really? Who was at her first birthday? Who arranged for her to go to the crèche at the hospital so she could be close to him? Who insisted on me reconciling with Dad so she could have a grandfather? Go to hell, Steve. I'm not the naive teenage virgin that you can manipulate anymore. I have a husband and Laura has a father who loves us and we want nothing more to do with you." She said this feeling strangely calm. It helped knowing that Laura wasn't around, but it was more than that. It was knowing that Steve meant nothing to her anymore, not even as the man who had broken her heart and ruined her life. Even indirectly, he had brought Jack into her and Laura's lives, and now she was deliriously happy. Whereas Steve – Steve looked very worse for wear. He had aged more than just the two years since she had last seen him. Alcohol and a less-than-ideal lifestyle had eroded his looks just as effective as they had Ashley's, and now she found she could only pity him.

"Gabrielle, please. Did Jack tell you that I can't have children?" he asked.

"Yeah, he did. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," she said sarcastically.

"Laura's the only child I'll ever have."

"No, Laura's Jack's firstborn," she corrected. "_You_ will never have children." _Thankgod for that_. Once upon a time, she had dreamed of having children with Steve. Now she saw just how bad a parent Steve would make, and that it was a good thing that he couldn't have any more children. His own selfish actions had saved Laura from growing up with a drunk, neglectful parent who would have made Ned Quade look like Father of the Year.

"Gabrielle, please," he said again, trying to appeal to her sense of decency. They had loved each other once, and he was hoping Gabrielle might be swayed by the fact he couldn't have any more children. "Jack can have more children." He looked directly at her swelling stomach, and Gabrielle took a step back, wrapping her arms protectively around her middle, resenting any interest that Steve showed in her pregnancy. "I just want to get to know my daughter."

"Go to hell."

"Gabrielle, what's – " Jack started to say before he saw Steve. He should have known from the beat-up ute that was completely out of place in this neighbourhood. "_You_," he snarled. "Get the fuck out of my house. Gabrielle, call the police." Gabrielle scampered into the kitchen where one of the cordless phones was based and Jack turned to Steve. "I believe I just gave you an order," he said.

"I came to see my daughter."

"_My_ daughter," Jack corrected. "I have a birth certificate that says so."

"What, are you and Gabby synchronising your arguments now?" Steve asked sarcastically. "I can get a DNA test that says different."

"You do that," Jack said slowly so Steve would understand every word of what he was saying. He had spoken to Peter Hutchinson – actually, he wouldn't have needed so high-priced a lawyer when his sister, a second-year law student could have told him the same thing, but it would always be handy to scare off anyone thinking of representing Steve with the words _Peter Hutchinson_ – and was confident in how non-existent a case Steve had, even if he _was_ Laura's biological father. "Of course, you'll have to get a court order for that first, 'cos like hell am I allowing anyone to stick needles into Laura without it, nor, for that matter, is anyone getting _my_ DNA without a court order. And to get a court order, you're going to have to explain how you came to write _my_ name on the birth certificate, which involves a side case of felony, 'cos knowingly lying on a birth certificate is the little thing called _fraud_. And of course I'll unearth everyone I can to testify that you told all and sundry that there was no way in hell you were Laura's dad. Then, if you _do_ find a judge who will give you a DNA order, and if you _are_ Laura's father, you're going to face a long custody battle. DOCS doesn't like messing up happy families. You really think you're going to have much luck convincing a judge to give an unemployed drunk custody of a two-year-old over a highly respected married surgeon and admin nurse? Not to mention, you'll be separating Laura from her brothers and sisters, and DOCS hates doing that, too. And even if you _do_ get custody – and you're best hope is every second fortnight, _if_ you get incredibly lucky – by that time she'll be five or six and I would have spent the last four years telling her what an asshole you are. She'll hate you. Courts listen to children that age when they say who they want to live with."

Steve glowered. Jack had him in a corner and he knew it. But he wasn't about to concede defeat. "You wouldn't," he said.

"There's nothing I wouldn't do to keep my children safe," Jack said, stressing _my children_. "But I'll do you a deal." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was a brochure of shorts with some notes Jack had written in the margins. "This is for a place called Serenity Lodge. It's one of the best rehab places in New South Wales. It's a twelve-month program, three months of in-patient detox and nine months of out-patient treatment. I can get you in within a week. You do that, you get yourself a job and _then_ we'll talk about supervised visitation."

"You bastard," Steve said, shaking more at the thought of a three-month detox than a year before he so much as got to see Laura. "I'm her father."

"You say that again and the deal's off the table." There was a knock on the door and Jack went to open it. It was the cops. "You got here quicker than I expected," he said pleasantly.

"Your wife sounded quite distressed," one of them said. "I understand you have an intruder?"

"Her ex," Jack said. "And he was just leaving." He cocked his head in Steve's direction.

Steve, like most alcoholics, had an ingrained antipathy towards cops, and he tensed up the second he saw them. "Yeah, I was just going," he agreed. The cops didn't move from the doorway, so Steve was forced to squeeze past them.

"Is there anything else we can help you with?" the same cop asked courteously. Part of what had elevated Jack and Gabrielle into the pages of _The Scene_ was the amount of volunteer work they did, going to schools and youth organisations to talk about the medical consequences of drinking, speeding and other reckless behaviours that were the bane of cops' existences, and as a result, Jack and Gabrielle were popular within the police department.

"Fine, for the moment," Jack said. He was slightly worried about how Steve would react when he realised that everything Jack had said about Laura was true. Steve would be lucky just to get a judge to give him a court order for a DNA sample. Once that sank in, there was no saying what he might do. Steve had no far demonstrated that he didn't take well to hearing news he didn't want to hear. "But his name's Steve Taylor. From a town near the Victorian border called Widgee. You think you can pull up his record? He has this fixation on my wife and daughter and the more I have against him, the better."

It wasn't exactly regulation, but he figured there would be no harm done. "Thanks," Jack said gratefully. He saw the cops out and returned to Gabrielle. "He's gone," he said. Then added casually, "You know there's a security chain and a peep-hole for a reason?"

"Yeah, I know," she said. "I feel so stupid."

"It's OK. I'm just glad Laura wasn't here." He hugged her and kissed the top of her head, not mentioning that it worried him that Steve's determination to see Laura wasn't being curtailed either by human decency or the fact that he had no legal rights to her. And that could be dangerous.

* * *

"Smart, Steve, _real_ smart," Ashley raged at Steve. He had gotten no further than she had. And what was all this crap about wanting to be with Laura, about her being his daughter? Steve hadn't given a shit about her for two years; more than that, he had done everything in his power to deny her existence. Had he really though Jack and Gabrielle were just going to hand her over like everything was fine and dandy? _At least he could he been smart and asked for money_, she thought. Someone like Jack Quade must have at least ten, twenty grand in disposable cash. If Laura meant that much to him, then surely it was a small amount to get rid of Steve? And what she could do with twenty grand.

Steve glowered. He was well aware of how thoroughly he had been beaten. And the worst part of it was, he knew Jack knew what he was talking about. If he tried to get a court order for a DNA sample, it would be easy enough for Jack and Gabrielle to turn around and point out that Steve, in his bitterness in discovering he was sterile, was trying to claim an ex-girlfriend's daughter – a child he had, at the time, told everyone who would listen (and many who wouldn't) that there was no way in hell she was his.

_Damn, damn, damn._ How could he have gotten it all so wrong? In his mind, Gabrielle would have been happy to see him and Jack would have been happy to have Laura taken off his hands. Having never understood why Jack would want to take on responsibility of another man's child, he had never understood that Jack would go to the same lengths for Laura as he would any other children of his. Instead, he had been met by a ferocious father who was acutely aware of his rights - to hell with genetics.

"I don't understand why that brat means that much to you," Ashley said sullenly. Sullen was her main mood these days. Seeing Gabrielle in the flesh, how well and successful she was, had made her even more bitter than just seeing her in a magazine. She reached for her glass of vodka and lemonade – more vodka than lemonade – and downed it quickly, then poured herself another. She knew she was drunk, and she intended on getting drunker. She wanted to get so drunk that she forgot how angry she was that things had worked out so well for Gabrielle while she was virtually unemployable – unless she wanted to scrub toilets or flip hamburgers – and her looks were going and the only man who showed any interest in her was Steve... and that even then, 'interest' was too strong a word. _Apathetic habit_ was a more appropriate one.

"She's my daughter," Steve said, just as sullenly. Why couldn't the stupid slut get that through her thick head? He glared at Ashley. Seeing Gabrielle had made him even more aware of how Ashley just didn't compare. Love made her glow, and she had taken care of her health and looks far better than Ashley had. Far better than _he_ had, for that matter.

Ashley downed another vodka and lemonade even more quickly. She laughed meanly. "She's not your daughter, Steve. Everyone knows that. There's more honour in being a fucking sperm donor."

"Shut up!" Steve screamed at her. He gulped down his own straight scotch, the fiery liquid burning his throat and feeding his anger. _Stupid slut_. What the hell did she know? _Stupid nurse who would never have gotten anywhere if she hadn't had Gabrielle's notes to crib off_.

"I won't!" Ashley screamed back. "You're an idiot, Steve, and the smartest thing Gabrielle ever did was to leave you! You really think she wouldn't have worked it out eventually? You think someone as smart as her wouldn't have found something better than some asshole who reeks of scotch? You really think any judge is going to let you anywhere near Laura after taking one look at you? I know _I_ sure as hell wouldn't choose _you_ over _him_."

"_I SAID SHUT UP!_" Steve screamed. He didn't want to hear about his failures, about Jack's virtues. Didn't want to hear how much better a man, a doctor and a human being Jack Quade was compared to him. And certainly didn't want to hear it from Ashley, who was trash if ever there was trash. She was no better than him. "You think you're any better?" he sneered drunkenly, tottering dangerously. "You think you would have gotten anywhere without her? Just look at how shit your life has been without her. You think someone like Quade would look twice at you? Hey, I have an idea of how you can make money. We're in Sydney, right? You should fit right in at Kings Cross – if they'll take you."

Ashley's eyes glittered with fury. _How dare he!_ No better than he was, was she? Her life was only this way because of one little slip in judgement in letting Steve seduce her. With a howl of rage, she barrelled towards him, poised to strike.

Steve was drunk, but he was still far stronger than Ashley, and he shoved her to the side before she could strike him. With a scream, she hurtled towards the floor, hitting her head on the glass top of the cheap coffee table that furnished the motel room.

"Ashley?" he called her name when she slumped to the floor in silence. "Jones, this is no time for mucking around." Ashley remained silent. "Shit," he said to the silent room. "Stupid, clumsy slut." He kicked her in the ribs and she said and did nothing. Great, now he would have to take her to hospital.

Drunkenly, he picked her up and hauled her into his ute parked outside, buckling her in awkwardly. He got in the driver's seat and set off, fifteen kilometres over the limit as he sped out of the parking lot.

He hit the freeway and veered erratically. He knew he was drunk but he was already on the freeway so there was no help for it now. Naturally, it wasn't too long before he caught the attention of the police – unluckily enough for him, the same police who had been called to the Quade house a few hours before and had pulled up his records, including the licence plate of his ute. "_Shit_," Steve yelled to himself, then for added benefit, said to Ashley, "See what you've done, you stupid slut," he hissed. He hit the accelerator and started veering erratically, too absorbed in outrunning the police to realise how fast he was going or how far to the edge of the road he was veering.

He hit the light post at over a hundred kilometres an hour.

**Epilogue**

Sarah Taylor couldn't be much older than sixty. Jack guessed, but she looked older than seventy. He imagined it had come from a fair chunk of her adult life spent worrying about her alcoholic firstborn. Well, now she could stop worrying, although he was sure that was cold comfort to her.

He was grateful that she didn't hold him responsible for Steve's death – or Ashley's. He had felt awful that their deaths had happened so soon after his confrontation with Steve, and despite knowing that Steve had ultimately brought it upon himself – it wasn't like Jack had forced him to drink and drive, or to do any of the things that had led up to the end of his miserable life – Jack couldn't help but wonder if his refusal to let Steve see Laura had pushed him over the edge. "Always knew the two of them would end up that way," Sarah admitted sadly. "Two selfish, indulgent people who didn't know when to quit. The only good thing he ever did was Laura, and he didn't want anything to do with her until it was far too late."

_Laura_. Right now she was tottering around with Leo, oblivious to the perverse sense of grief and relief that permeated the funeral and wake. Sarah was clearly grieving, as were the younger sisters that Steve had alienated in his alcoholic career. But they were all clearly also relieved that there would be no more heartache caused by Steve's addiction, and Steve had burned to many bridges in his life to have anyone else grieve for him. And the best thing he had ever done was currently carousing with a Golden Retriever, her life so much better for never having known Steve.

And Sarah knew it. As much as it broke her heart to be seeing her two-year-old grand-daughter for the first time, not knowing when she might see her again, she knew that her life was so much better for having Jack as her dad rather than her own son. "She's beautiful," Sarah said wistfully. "She takes after her grandmother."

"I've been told. I wish I'd have known her."

"She was... a great woman. Laura has good genes," Sarah said ironically. There was a long pause as Sarah built up the courage to ask what she wanted. "I know I don't deserve it – I don't consider that Steve had any more claim to Laura than if he'd adopted her out, so that means I don't have any claim to her either, but – I'd really like to see her from time to time. She doesn't have to know who I am, and I can come up to Sydney if that's easier for you all."

"Both my and Gabby's mums are dead," Jack said. "Laura needs a grandmother. We'll be coming down here from time to time – I don't want any of my children not to be familiar with farm life," he said, shooting a look at Gabrielle. "You're welcome to see her whenever you want." Even if Jack had felt otherwise, he didn't have the heart to deny Sarah such a request.

"Thankyou."

After the wake, Jack and Gabrielle took Laura to the Jaeger farm where Russel and Ben were waiting for them. "How's my princess?" Russel asked Laura, picking her up and spinning her around in circles. Laura gurgled with laughter and cried out 'Grandpa'. "How's she doing?" he asked Jack and Gabrielle after Ben had taken her to explore the backyard.

"I don't think she worked it out," Gabrielle said. "We're trying to be honest with her – we just can't keep something that from her, too many people know – but she got over it pretty quickly. I think she was more frightened about a stranger handling her than she was Steve telling her he was her father." She paused, reflecting. In the hours leading up to Steve's death, she had come to realise how little he and Ashley meant to her anymore. Learning of their deaths had come as a shock to her, and she had found herself genuinely grieving, if not for the people that they had become, then for the people that she had once known. Their deaths made things simpler for her and Jack, but she never would have wished for things to end like this, regardless of how badly things had ended between them.

Russel nodded. There wasn't much else that could be said on the subject. Steve and Ashley were both dead and no-one else could – or would – challenge their claim to Laura. "Well, it's good to have you here," he said. "Laura shouldn't be strictly confined to being a city girl. None of them should. Speaking of which," Russel said, trying to sound casual. "It's about time we got her a pony."

"Over my dead body," Jack said with a casualness that did nothing to hide the fact he was dead serious.

Gabrielle laughed at that. "Sorry, dad, he's not going to budge on that one. Five at the absolute youngest."

"Well... at least let me take her out to the paddocks, let her see her heritage," Russel negotiated.

"I thought Ben was meant to inherit the whole thing?" Jack teased.

"Bloody hell, Jack, are you going to fight me on this ever step of the way?"

Jack softened, not that he was really against Laura familiarising herself with the farm anyway. They had all been through a lot, even if Russel hadn't always been on Gabrielle's side, and there was no point in reminding him of that now. "Sure," he said. Ben brought Laura back out from the garden and Jack reached for her hand. She tottered unsteadily but was very independent and didn't like being held when she could walk. "Let's go," Jack said.


End file.
